Pricing research · Updated 10 September 2026
What five seconds actually costs.
Published prices, translated into the same unit. Compare the cost of a five-second generation, then check the model, plan and assumptions.
At a glance · scene generation · USD per 5 seconds
Kling
$0.40 / 5 sec
VIDEO 3.0 base / silent · 720p
Standard monthly renewal; 660 credits
Pricing source ↗Runway
$1.44 / 5 sec
Gen-4.5 web T2V · 720p
Standard monthly
Pricing source ↗Runway API
$0.60 / 5 sec
Gen-4.5 API T2V / standard delivery · 720p baseline
API pay-as-you-go; $0.01 per credit
Pricing source ↗Published rates reviewed 10 September 2026. Full credit use, before tax, no retakes. These are allocation costs, not measured costs per usable clip. Presenter plans are shown separately below.
The headline — general video
Kling and Runway do the same job: generate an open-ended scene from a prompt. At the entry paid tier, 720p, five seconds:
| Tool | Plan | Cost / 5s | Native audio | Versus Kling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kling | Standard monthly | $0.40 | No — $0.60 with | — |
| Runway | Standard monthly | $1.44 | None natively | 3.6× |
Runway costs three and a half times what Kling does for the same five seconds at the same resolution, and produces no audio, so a separate audio pass has to be budgeted on top. Kling with native audio switched on is still $0.60 — well under half Runway's silent output.
Presenter pricing: a different job
Synthesia makes a presenter talking to camera. It cannot generate a rain-soaked alley or a spilling wine glass, and neither of the tools above can produce a scripted presenter. Ranking them against each other on price compares two different products doing two different jobs.
It is also billed differently — by the minute of presenter video, not per generation:
| Plan | Per presenter minute | Equivalent per 5s | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter monthly | $2.90 | $0.24 | Presenter speech |
| Starter annual | $1.79 | $0.15 | Presenter speech |
| Creator monthly | $2.97 | $0.25 | Presenter speech |
| Creator annual | $2.09 | $0.17 | Presenter speech |
The per-5-second column exists only so the figure can be read in the same unit as the table below. It is not an invitation to rank Synthesia against Kling or Runway, and we do not publish a cross-category winner.
Runway: API versus subscription
The most useful thing in this data. Generating through Runway's API at pay-as-you-go rates costs $0.60 per five seconds. The same output through a Standard web subscription costs $1.44.
If your volume is low or irregular, the subscription is the expensive way to buy Runway. That only becomes visible once the plan allocation and the per-second API rate are put in the same unit — which is the entire reason this page exists.
Runway 5s @ 720p — API $0.60 · Max $0.60 · Pro $0.93 · Standard annual $1.15 · Standard monthly $1.44
Every scenario
32 scenarios across plan tiers, resolutions, audio settings, durations and API rates. Sort by duration or cost, or filter by tool.
| Tool / model | Plan basis | Secs | Cost | Resolution | Audio | Commercial use |
|---|
What these numbers assume
Every figure is a nominal allocation cost. Three assumptions sit behind all of them:
- Full use of the plan's credits. If you buy a monthly allocation and use half of it, your real cost per second doubles.
- List price, before tax.
- No retakes. Every generation counted here is assumed to be one you keep.
That last assumption is the big one, and it is why this page is only half the picture. If a tool needs three attempts to produce something usable, its real cost is three times the figure shown. The number that closes that gap is cost per usable clip, and it can only come from generating clips and judging them. We do not run those controlled tests; see our research method.
Treat these as a floor, not a price
Real spend is this figure divided by your usable rate. A tool at $0.40 that lands two clips in five costs $1.00 per clip you actually keep — more than a $0.60 tool that lands four in five.
Sources
Vendor pricing pages, accessed 10 September 2026. Prices change without notice — check before you subscribe.
Some tools on this page are ones we may earn commission from. Pricing is taken from the vendor's published rates and is not adjusted by that — see the disclosure.