---
type: source
title: "AI Video API Pricing 2026: Seedance vs Sora vs Kling vs Veo — Production-Quality Video Now $0.022-$0.03/sec"
author: "DevTk.AI"
url: https://devtk.ai/en/blog/ai-video-generation-pricing-2026/
date: 2026-05-01
domain: entertainment
secondary_domains: []
format: article
status: processed
processed_by: clay
processed_date: 2026-05-08
priority: high
tags: [ai-video, production-costs, seedance, kling, veo, cost-collapse, disruption]
intake_tier: research-task
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

Comprehensive pricing comparison of AI video generation APIs as of May 2026:

- **Seedance 2.0 Fast:** $0.022/sec — 1080p output, cheapest production-quality option, optimal for bulk/draft
- **Veo 3.1:** $0.03/sec — includes native audio, most affordable for video + sound
- **Kling 3.0:** ~$0.029/sec (fal.ai) — approximately 3x cheaper than Sora 2, 10x cheaper than Veo 3.1 on comparable metrics
- **Sora 2:** approximately $0.087/sec

Budget example: $200/month budget split 70/30 (Seedance/Veo) = ~1,272 standard product videos (5 seconds each) + 250 premium hero videos (8 seconds each).

Recommended production strategy: multi-model routing — Seedance 2.0 Fast for bulk/draft, Kling 3.0 or Veo 3.1 for hero content. Savings: 30-50% vs. single-premium-model strategy.

Production quality capability (from companion articles): Kling 3.0 — character consistency across 6 connected shots (4K, 60fps, 15s). Veo 3.1 — integrated audio-visual. Seedance 2.0 — phoneme-level lip-sync across 8+ languages, 4K.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the May 2026 confirmation of the production cost collapse thesis. The numbers are more dramatic than prior estimates: at $0.022/sec, a 7-minute animated episode costs $9.24 in raw AI video generation. Traditional animation: $15K-50K/minute × 7 min = $105K-$350K. That's a 10,000-35,000x cost reduction — I had been citing "99% reduction" (100x), which dramatically understates the actual cost curve. The "99% reduction" framing comes from the $15K/min to $2-30/min comparison cited earlier, but actual API prices are now $1.32-$1.80/min — lower than even that estimate.

**What surprised me:** The prices have dropped further than my prior tracking. Session May 4 estimated $21/episode for AI video generation. Actual May 2026 API prices yield $9-13/episode (Seedance to Veo 3.1 for a 7-minute episode). The cost floor keeps dropping between sessions.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Evidence of a quality plateau at these price points. The companion articles suggest 4K, 60fps, character consistency across multiple shots — production-quality output, not just rough drafts.

**KB connections:**
- [[GenAI is simultaneously sustaining and disruptive depending on whether users pursue progressive syntheticization or progressive control]] — the "progressive control" path (start synthetic, add direction) is now priced at $9-13/episode
- [[non-ATL production costs will converge with the cost of compute as AI replaces labor across the production chain]] — this IS convergence happening
- [[five factors determine the speed and extent of disruption including quality definition change and ease of incumbent replication]] — at $9/episode vs $105K traditional, the quality-definition-change has already occurred; incumbents face a cost asymmetry that is irreversible

**Extraction hints:**
1. Claim candidate: "AI video generation costs have reached $0.022-$0.03/sec ($1.32-$1.80/minute) as of May 2026, making a 7-minute animated episode generable for under $13 — a cost reduction of 10,000-35,000x compared to traditional animation"
2. Update to existing claim: [[non-ATL production costs will converge with the cost of compute as AI replaces labor across the production chain]] — new data point confirming trajectory
3. This data should trigger a precision update to Belief 3's "99% cost reduction" framing — actual reduction is closer to 99.99%+

**Context:** Multiple AI video API providers competing intensely (Kuaishou/Kling, Google/Veo, ByteDance/Seedance, OpenAI/Sora). Price competition is ongoing — expect further reduction. These are API prices for production use, not consumer-tier pricing.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[GenAI is simultaneously sustaining and disruptive depending on whether users pursue progressive syntheticization or progressive control]] — May 2026 API prices confirm the disruptive path is now available at $9-13/episode for a 7-minute production
WHY ARCHIVED: Updates the production cost collapse data with May 2026 actual API prices — significantly lower than prior estimates; needed to update KB's quantitative claims about the cost curve
EXTRACTION HINT: Focus on the specific price data ($0.022-$0.03/sec) and the episode-level cost calculation ($9-$13 for 7-minute episode). Also note the multi-model routing strategy as evidence of a mature production ecosystem. The 10,000x vs 100x cost reduction distinction matters — the KB currently understates the actual reduction.
