Data and trust
Where the prices come from
What is confirmed, what is not, and any commercial relationships, kept apart.
Subscription prices: read from the official site once a day
Each tool's official pricing page is read automatically once a day: the plan pages of HeyGen, Runway, Pika, InVideo AI and Luma (Pika's monthly and annual prices are on two pages), and for Vidu the public product data its official pricing page serves to ordinary visitors. Only US-dollar prices on the international website are recorded, excluding tax. Runway, Pika, InVideo AI and Luma publish annual billing as a per-month figure; the annual total is that figure times 12, and each tool page says so.
A price change has to be seen twice
When an amount or a credit allowance differs from last time, the same official page is read again straight away, and the change is recorded only if both reads agree. This is a re-check, not a second source.
When a page cannot be read
If a day's read fails, the page keeps showing the last confirmed price, labeled as not currently readable and dated; the time of the attempt is never written as the time of confirmation. Three days in a row without a read, and we are alerted. PixVerse's subscription page asks visitors to pass a human check before it opens, so a person checks it and the page shows that date. Kling and Hailuo do not publish current subscription prices on their websites; the pages say so, and older third-party quotes are not used instead.
App Store in-app prices
The in-app prices of the Kling, Runway, Pika and HeyGen iPhone apps are read every day in 34 App Store countries and regions, with the currency Apple's own interface reports rather than one guessed from the country. Whether an app is the vendor's own is checked against the developer website in Apple's listing or the download link on the vendor's site. “How much more the app costs” compares the US App Store only, with tax excluded on both sides. When the store lists two prices under the same in-app name, both are shown with a note.
Model rates: checked by hand, one by one
Which tools run a model, and how many credits a second or a clip costs, come from the model rate tables on each tool's official pricing page. Each rate is checked by hand, dated, and re-checked within 30 days. Only rates given as exact numbers are used; estimates marked “~” or “up to” are not. Model names are recorded as each platform writes them, and models not stated to be the same are kept apart.
API prices: checked by hand, one by one
Pay-as-you-go API prices come from each provider's official pricing page, recorded in the provider's own unit (dollars or platform credits); converting to dollars is only for comparing with subscriptions. Each one is dated and rechecked within 30 days, and prices the provider calls approximate are marked. Where an API cannot be bought is judged only from the provider's published list of regions; a provider with no list excludes no region, and the page says so.
How the cost calculator works
Your videos a month, seconds per video and average attempts are converted into credits at the model rates above, then matched to the cheapest plan with enough credits; an API is the seconds times its price, with any minimum charge per generation applied. Only channels with exact published rates and confirmed prices are counted, and only those sold in the region you picked. The result is an upper limit for video generation alone, since credits also go on other features, and the number of attempts is your own estimate, not a measured success rate.
Rules are checked by hand
Whether credits roll over, regional eligibility and commercial-use rules are written down by hand from official documentation. Each tool page gives its own confirmation date, and these facts do not update with the daily price reads.
Unknown means unknown
When a price cannot be read, official statements contradict each other, or only old third-party quotes can be found, the item stays “to be confirmed”. An unknown price is never shown as 0 and takes part in no comparison. This site does not claim to cover the lowest price anywhere in the world.
Commissions are not buyer discounts
There are currently no affiliate links, paid rankings or exclusive discount codes. If an affiliate partnership is added, the relationship will be disclosed next to the purchase link. Commission a vendor pays this site will never be labeled as a discount for you.
The tool list is not a quality ranking
Tools are shortlisted by what they are for. We have not run a common generation test, so we give no quality scores, success rates or “best” verdicts.