Methodology

The metric: USD per second of generated video

AI video providers bill four different ways, which makes raw price pages impossible to compare. We convert everything to one number — the cost of one second of output video:

• Per-second billing (e.g. fal.ai, PiAPI): used as published.
• Per-clip billing (e.g. WaveSpeed duration grids): clip price ÷ clip duration.
• Token billing (e.g. Seedance on BytePlus): tokens = (width × height × 24fps × seconds) ÷ 1024, costed at the published per-token rate for that resolution tier. Note this means cost scales with resolution area — 4K ≈ 11× the 480p price, not 4×.
• Credit systems (e.g. Kie.ai): credits per generation × the provider's dollar-per-credit rate, ÷ duration.

Every row carries a normalization_note explaining its derivation (hover any price), plus the source URL and verification date.

Like-for-like rules

• "Cheapest" rankings compare the ~720p class by default; other resolutions are listed but not ranked against it.
• Audio-inclusive and audio-extra rates are flagged per row (some providers charge ~50% more with audio).
• Fast/standard/pro tiers are labeled and never silently mixed.
• verified = we checked the provider's published price directly. reported = from a credible secondary source, pending direct verification.

Verification pipeline

Prices are re-checked on a 12-hour cycle by automated scrapers against provider pages. Any price that moves more than 40% is quarantined for human review instead of auto-publishing. Manual overrides (for providers without scrapeable pages) carry their own verification dates.

Free dataset, API & MCP server

AI assistants can query the data directly via our MCP server (streamable HTTP, free, no key): add https://genrates.com/api/mcp to Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP-capable client — e.g. claude mcp add --transport http genrates https://genrates.com/api/mcp. Tools: list_models, get_cheapest, list_prices, compare_providers.

The full normalized dataset is free at /api/v1/prices (no key required), and the cheapest-per-model summary at /api/v1/cheapest. Attribution with a link to GenRates is appreciated. The data is published as factual price information with source attribution.

Changelog

• 2026-07-31 — Data hygiene: removed 3 exact-duplicate records (same provider/mode/tier/resolution/audio + price, double-ingested during dataset merges); relabeled 1 OpenAI batch-rate record(s) to tier "batch". New automated validator now fails any build containing duplicates or contradictions.
• 2026-07-31 — Deals engine live: 17 deals across 9 consumer platforms (Higgsfield, Krea, Freepik, Dreamina, Pollo, PixVerse app, OpenArt, Kling app, Hailuo app), each verified with source + date.
• 2026-07-31 — Integrity purge: removed 2 wrong-model-version proxy records (Novita "Seedance 2.0" was Seedance 1.5 Pro pricing; Kie "Kling 3.0" was Kling 2.1 pricing). Rule: a different model version is a different product — never a proxy. Caught by the owner.
• 2026-07-30 — Dataset expansion: +38 price records, +7 models (Runway Gen-4.5, Luma Ray 2/3, LTX-2, PixVerse V6, Vidu Q3, HunyuanVideo 1.5), +3 official providers (Runway, Luma, Vidu).
• 2026-07-30 — Initial dataset: 58 verified price records across 6 models and 9 providers, hand-verified against provider pages.

Corrections

Spotted a wrong or stale price? Email hello@genrates.com with a source link — corrections ship within 24 hours.