AI video cost per kept clip, by model and route

By The CostMath desk · Prices checked 2026-09-28

For Kling 3.0 at 1080p without audio, 30 kept 5-second clips a month at a 50% keep rate cost $1.09 per kept clip on the cheapest route (Kling AI), and $1.68 per kept clip with audio (fal.ai and Krea API). That is the calculator’s starting workload: change the model, resolution, clip length, volume or keep rate and the routes are ranked again by what you pay per clip you keep.

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The silent figure above is the calculator’s top row; the with-audio figure is the matching row of the with-audio table in the Kling 3.0 comparison.

How to read the result

Each row is one way to buy the same clips: the model maker’s own app or API, or an aggregator that resells it. Rows are sorted by cost per kept clip and nothing else. The per-kept-clip figure divides the monthly total by the clips you keep, so a plan you only partly use still counts at its full price.

A row shows a reason instead of a cost when the route can’t price the clip as set: the clip is too long, the length isn’t sold at that setting, a per-clip route has no recorded price at that length, the workload outgrows the largest plan, or no plan is confirmed to run that model at that resolution. “Price not collected for this length” means the dataset has no price for a length the route sells, not that the vendor can’t make it. A route priced only at other settings is listed last, as “no price recorded at this setting”.

Routes we checked but couldn’t price at any setting aren’t in the calculator. Each model’s page lists them with the reason and the page we checked; the Veo 3.1 Fast list is below.

Keep rate

The keep rate is the share of your billable generations that you actually use. Count every clip the vendor generated and charged for, and leave out failed or blocked requests the vendor didn’t charge for; Google, for one, says it doesn’t bill Veo generations it blocks. The calculator turns kept clips into generations, rounds up, and prices the generations.

A lower keep rate means more generations. On a route billed per second or per clip the cost rises in step. On a subscription it stays flat while the plan’s credits cover the extra generations, then steps up, to a bigger plan or by top-up credits where the plan takes them.

How routes bill

The plan column shows which of these applies.

• Subscription plan. A monthly price buys an allowance of credits, and each model costs a set number of credits per second or per clip. The calculator picks the cheapest plan that covers your generations and is confirmed to run the model at your resolution.
• Plan plus top-up. Where a vendor publishes a price for extra credits, the calculator also tries a smaller plan plus top-up credits, bought in whole blocks where the vendor sells them that way, marked “+ top-up”. Plans the vendor excludes from top-ups are never topped up, and packs priced only at checkout aren’t used.
• Pay per second. No subscription: the per-second rate times the seconds generated. Some providers need the account funded in advance, and prepaid balances can expire (fal.ai and Replicate both say so), so money loaded but not spent isn’t in the figure.
• Pay per clip. No subscription: a fixed dollar price for one clip of a set length and resolution, paid from an account balance.

Credits are not a shared currency, so compare the dollar columns rather than credit counts. The Higgsfield credit decoder converts one aggregator’s credits into dollars per clip, model by model.

The calculator prices one route at a time. Filling a plan and sending the overflow to a route billed per second can cost less than either alone; the calculator doesn’t work out that split.

A second model: Veo 3.1 Fast with sound

Here are the workload and price tables for a second model, Veo 3.1 Fast with sound, sold through Google’s own API as well as resellers’ apps and APIs. At the starting workload it is cheapest on Google and Krea API.

Where two routes cost the same, this table names one, in alphabetical order; the calculator marks both.

This table ignores workload and prices one clip on each route at its best-value plan, the one with the lowest price per credit, marked “Lowest rate”. Treat it as a floor: a subscription only reaches it if you use every credit of that plan each month. The gap between it and the workload table is the cost of plan minimums and unused credits.

How the numbers are built

Every figure comes from vendor pricing pages recorded in the dataset; the Sources list names them with check dates. Subscriptions are priced at the recurring monthly price the vendor lists, not first-month offers. Where a vendor labels that recurring price as a discount, as Kling does on its membership page, it is still used, since it is what a subscriber pays today. The methodology page covers rounding, plan limits and ties.

What this doesn’t cover

The calculator says nothing about output quality, prompt adherence, generation speed, queue times or support. Commercial-use rights and watermarks differ by route and sometimes by plan, so check the terms before you publish. First-month discounts, time-limited offers, credit packs without a public price and the routes in the coverage lists are left out of the math.