The Same AI Video Second Costs $0.43 or $0.18 Depending on Your Plan: A Dated Teardown of Runway, Luma and Pika Pricing

# The Same AI Video Second Costs $0.43 or $0.18 Depending on Your Plan  On Runway, one second of Kling 4.0 at 1080p costs about $0.43 on the Standard plan and about $0.18 on the Max plan. Same model, same second, 2.4 times the price. Luma and Pika behave differently again. This post turns the credit tables on three public pricing pages into dollars per second, using the pages as we read them on October 26, 2026. **The price of an AI video second is set by your plan tier before it is set by your model.** Nothing here is a quality test. We did not render clips on these platforms, so we make no claim about which output looks better. This is arithmetic on published numbers, with the gaps in those pages called out. ## How we did the math Dollars per credit is the monthly plan price divided by the monthly credits. Dollars per second is credits per second times dollars per credit. All prices are monthly billing; annual billing is cheaper and is shown at the end. Each page was fetched on 2026-10-26 and none shows an effective date, so treat the numbers as a snapshot. | Platform | Plan | Monthly price | Monthly credits | Dollars per credit | |---|---|---|---|---| | Runway | Standard | $15 | 625 | $0.0240 | | Runway | Pro | $35 | 2,250 | $0.0156 | | Runway | Max | $95 | 9,500 | $0.0100 | | Luma | Plus | $30 | 10,000 | $0.0030 | | Luma | Pro | $90 | 40,000 | $0.00225 | | Luma | Ultra | $300 | 150,000 | $0.0020 | | Pika | Starter | $10 | 900 | $0.0111 | | Pika | Creator | $35 | 3,150 | $0.0111 | Credit counts on different platforms are not comparable. Luma gives you 16 times the credits of Runway Standard for twice the price, but a Luma second also costs more credits. Only dollars per second compares.  ## Three plan structures, three behaviors 1. **Runway has the steepest ladder.** Its dollar-per-credit rate falls from $0.024 to $0.010 between Standard and Max, a 2.4 times spread. 2. **Luma has a gentler ladder.** From $0.003 on Plus to $0.002 on Ultra is a 1.5 times spread. 3. **Pika is flat.** Starter and Creator both work out to $0.0111 per credit, so upgrading buys more seconds, not cheaper ones. ## The same model, priced per second Credits per second come from each page: Luma lists them per second, Runway lists Kling 4.0 and Seedance 2.0 Pro per clip, and Pika lists one 5-second Seedance 2.5 price. | Model and setting | Runway | Luma | Pika | |---|---|---|---| | Kling 4.0, 1080p (Runway price with the 25% promo) | 17.8 credits/s: $0.43 Standard, $0.28 Pro, $0.18 Max | 79 credits/s: $0.24 Plus, $0.18 Pro, $0.16 Ultra | not listed | | Seedance 2.0 1080p | 40 credits/s ("Seedance 2.0 Pro"): $0.96 Standard, $0.62 Pro, $0.40 Max | 126 credits/s: $0.38 Plus, $0.28 Pro, $0.25 Ultra | not listed | | Seedance 2.5 720p | not listed | 78 credits/s: $0.23 Plus, $0.18 Pro, $0.16 Ultra | 24.4 credits/s (122 per 5s): $0.27 on both plans | A few readings of that table: - **Entry plans are where the gap is widest.** On Kling 4.0 at 1080p, Runway Standard at $0.43 per second is 1.8 times Luma Plus at $0.24. - **The gap closes at the top.** Runway Max ($0.18) matches Luma Pro ($0.18) for Kling 4.0, so Runway is not simply more expensive. It is more expensive for small buyers. - **Seedance 2.0 shows the biggest spread.** Runway Standard at $0.96 per second is 2.5 times Luma Plus at $0.38. The two pages may not describe identical variants (Runway says "Pro"), so treat that row as indicative. - **Pika is mid-priced on the one shared model.** For Seedance 2.5 at 720p it is $0.27 per second against $0.23 on Luma Plus, about 16 percent more, but it does not get cheaper as you upgrade. The Runway Kling 4.0 line is a 25 percent promotion "until November 30" with no year printed. At the struck-through list price of 118 credits per 5 seconds, Runway Standard is $0.57 per second. ## What a 45-second Short really costs  Take 45 seconds of Kling 4.0 at 1080p, one take, no retakes: | Plan | Credits needed | Dollar cost | Share of the plan month | |---|---|---|---| | Runway Standard | 801 | about $19.22 | does not fit: the plan has 625 | | Runway Max | 801 | about $8.01 | 8% | | Luma Plus | 3,555 | about $10.67 | 36% | | Luma Ultra | 3,555 | about $7.11 | 2% | **On Runway Standard, a single 45-second Kling 4.0 Short is bigger than the whole month of credits.** The plan covers about 35 seconds of that model per month, and Runway says Standard monthly credits do not roll over. This is one take. Real work includes retakes, which is why we wrote about [the 30-second clip cost trap](/blog/ai-video-30-second-clip-cost-trap) and [drafting at low resolution first](/blog/seedance-2-5-4k-draft-first-price-ladder). The same retake multiplier applies on every platform, so a platform that looks 1.8 times more expensive per second is 1.8 times more expensive per retake too. ## What the pages do not say - **Pika** lists credit costs for only two video models (Seedance 2.5 at 122 credits and Wan 3.0 at 33 credits, both 720p and 5 seconds) and no per-second rate. It says the Free plan has no commercial license and lists commercial use on paid plans. - **Luma** does not state whether credits expire or roll over, and the page fetch did not show watermark or commercial-use terms for each plan. - **Runway** does not state what a failed generation costs, and it does not list commercial-use terms on the pricing page. Its Seedance 2.0 Pro price is inconsistent with its plan cards, which mention Seedance 2.5. - **None of the three pages shows an effective date.** Check the terms for commercial use and credit expiry on the platform itself before you commit a channel to it. ## Copy this: the plan-pick card  ``` Model + resolution + sound: [Kling 4.0, 1080p] Credits per second (page): [17.8] Seconds I need per month: [45 x 8 Shorts = 360] Credits needed = c/s x seconds: [6,408] Plan monthly credits: [Max 9,500] Plan price / credits = $/credit:[95 / 9,500 = 0.0100] Dollars per second = c/s x $/c: [0.178] Monthly cost of first takes: [0.178 x 360 = $64] Retake allowance (x1.5 to x3): [$96 to $192 -> does Max still cover it?] Rolls over? [Max: 1 month. Standard/Pro: no] Commercial use stated? [check the platform terms page] Date I read the page: [2026-10-26] ``` Two rules fall out of it. First, **price the model on the plan you would actually buy**, never on the best plan the page advertises. Second, **if your monthly seconds do not fill the plan, the effective price per second is higher than the table says**, because you pay the full plan price either way. For the per-model credit prices of the other 11 video models in ClipNovia, see [the per-second price table](/blog/ai-video-cost-per-second-shorts-budget), and for choosing between whole tools by the job, see [the AI Shorts generator guide](/blog/ai-shorts-generator-guide). ## Annual billing changes the numbers Runway lists Standard at $12 per month billed annually, Pro at $28 and Max at $76. Luma lists Plus at $25 per month billed yearly, Pro at $75 and Ultra at $250. Pika lists Starter at $8 and Creator at $28 annually. Those cut every dollar-per-second figure above by 20 percent on Runway and Pika and by about 17 percent on Luma, but they commit you for a year. We left them out of the main tables to keep the comparison to what a month-to-month buyer pays. ## Frequently asked questions **Which platform is cheapest per second?** It depends on the model and plan. For Kling 4.0 at 1080p, Luma Ultra at about $0.16 per second and Runway Max or Luma Pro at about $0.18 were the lowest in our table. On entry plans, Luma Plus was cheaper than Runway Standard for every shared model. **Why does the same model cost different amounts on different plans?** On Runway the credits-per-second figure stays the same but the price of a credit falls as the plan gets larger. That is the 2.4 times spread between Standard and Max. **Do these prices include retakes?** No. Every figure is a single first take. Multiply by the number of takes you expect. **Are these prices current?** They were read on October 26, 2026, and none of the pages show an effective date. The Runway Kling 4.0 promotion is listed as ending November 30. **Is this a quality comparison?** No. We did not render comparison clips, so the post says nothing about which platform produces better video. ## Price your own plan before you commit ClipNovia shows the credit cost for each model, length and resolution before you run it, so you can price a clip before you spend: [try it in ClipNovia](https://clipnovia.io/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=ai-video-price-per-second-by-plan-runway-luma-pika). *Sources, all read 2026-10-26: Runway pricing page (runway.com/pricing), Luma pricing page (lumalabs.ai/pricing), Pika pricing page (pika.art/pricing). None shows an effective date. Dollar figures are our arithmetic on monthly-billing prices. Update by 2026-11-30, when the Runway Kling 4.0 promotion is listed to end.*