Veo 3.1 Lite ($0.05 per second 720p) is the cheapest option by far, with native audio included.
Seedance 2.0 wins physics, multi-shot character consistency, and chained camera movements. Default for product ads and UGC.
Kling 3.0 wins cinematic color grading and multi-character dialogue with phoneme-level lip-sync.
Veo 3.1 Standard still leads on close-up surface detail and synced audio quality at 4K.
Higgsfield bundles all three models on one account, the cheapest way to keep all three on tap.
Pricing in this category rots in 60-90 days. Check live vendor pages before committing to a plan.
Every other week a new AI video model drops and declares itself the winner. Google pushed Veo 3.1 Lite out on March 31. Kuaishou shipped Kling 3.0 on February 5. ByteDance released Seedance 2.0 five days after that. If you are trying to pick one for a real marketing workflow, the search results are mostly AI-generated blog spam copying each other.
This article does three things. It gives you the real per-second pricing for each model, verified against the vendors' own pricing pages. It compares them head to head on the five things that actually matter (physics, prompt adherence, camera movement, visual detail, character consistency). And it tells you which one to pick for product ads, UGC, or cinematic work. If you want the broader workflow context first, the how to create AI video ads guide covers the end-to-end production pipeline.
Tyler Ang
Digital Marketing Consultant
After consulting with 255+ businesses, Tyler discovered most do not need more traffic. They need someone to look at their business properly first. He built sportifate.com to 6,800+ organic users with zero ad spend, proving the research-first system works.
Every month you run ads, post content, or pay for SEO without knowing what is actually working is another month of budget leaking, and in one conversation I can pull up your Google Ads, Search Console, and Analytics to show you exactly where the hole is and which underutilised areas deserve your attention first.
What you get from a 30-minute strategy call:
Full Platform Audit
A full breakdown of your current numbers across Google Ads, Meta, Search Console, and Analytics, showing where your money is going, what it is returning, and which underutilised areas could produce results faster
Biggest Constraint
The single biggest constraint holding your business back right now, identified from your actual platform data rather than guesswork
Veo, Kling, and Seedance at a glance, three AI video generators built for different jobs
Quick decision table, pick by use case
If you only scroll this far, pick the tool that matches your job:
Kling free tier (66 credits/day) then Seedance via Doubao daily allowance
No card needed
If you have been looking at Higgsfield as a subscription wrapper, the useful thing is that Higgsfield bundles access to all three models on one account. The sections below tell you which one to pick once you are inside it.
Pick by use case, not brand. Each branch leads to a different winning tool
Why compare Veo, Kling and Seedance right now
Three months ago this comparison would have looked different. OpenAI's Sora 2 was the reference point. Veo 3 was the quality leader. Kling was a niche tool Chinese creators raved about.
Since February, three things flipped the board.
Kling 3.0 landed February 5. Clip length jumped to 15 seconds. Multi-character scenes with lip-sync started working reliably. Color grading got more cinematic. For anyone producing character-driven content (talking heads, UGC, narrative clips), Kling moved from interesting to credible.
Seedance 2.0 landed February 10. ByteDance built it on a dual-branch diffusion transformer and shipped multi-modal input (up to nine reference images, three videos, three audio files, plus text prompt). More importantly, Seedance kept character consistency across different scenes in a single generation. That capability did not exist on any tool six months ago.
Veo 3.1 Lite launched March 31. Google cut per-second cost by 80 percent compared to Standard. That opens the door to mass creative testing in a way Veo's flagship tier never did.
The comparison matters because your 2025 answer (probably "Veo for quality, Kling for motion, Sora if you can get access") is stale. The question in 2026 is which of three models handles your specific job best, and whether you should pay $0.05, $0.28 or $0.60 per second for the result.
The fast answer: pick by use case, not by brand. The sections below explain why.
Veo 3.1 overview, Google's cinematic play
Veo 3.1 is Google DeepMind's flagship video model, available through the Gemini API, Vertex AI, and the Flow product. The defining feature is native synced audio. Every Veo clip ships with sound that matches the scene (rain, wind, crowd noise, footsteps, ambient music) built in, not bolted on.
What Veo 3.1 gets right:
Surface detail at close range. Dewdrops refract light. Pollen on a bee's leg renders as distinct grains. Sunlit glass has actual caustics. At the 1080p or 4K tier, Veo's per-pixel quality is still the ceiling none of the others reach.
Synced audio by default. Fire crackles when there is fire. Footsteps hit on steps. Nothing else in this comparison gives you that without a second pass.
Prompt adherence for visual descriptions. Tell Veo what a scene looks like and it will deliver the still image, almost always.
Where Veo 3.1 falls down:
Lighting often oversaturates. Reviewers (including Youri van Hofwegen's April 11 head-to-head) call it "VO bad lighting," a telltale golden-hour overcook that makes interiors look unnatural.
Complex camera movements are weak. Chained sequences (rise, rotate, pullback) tend to fragment. Veo treats them as separate instructions instead of one continuous flow.
No multi-shot consistency. If you want the same character across four scenes, Veo is not the tool. Each generation resets.
Best use case (verified): product hero shots, close-up B-roll, anything where surface detail and audio quality matter more than camera motion or character continuity. Clip length 8 seconds. Resolution 720p, 1080p and 4K on Standard and Fast tiers (Lite caps at 1080p). Audio included by default at every tier. Veo 3.1 Lite released March 31, 2026 via Vertex AI and the Gemini API through Google AI Studio.
Kling AI overview, the motion and character king
Kling is Kuaishou's video model, now on version 3.0 (released February 5, 2026). It is not the cheapest, not the most detailed, and not the best at physics. What it does better than anyone else is character-driven storytelling.
What Kling 3.0 gets right:
Cinematic color grading by default. Warm tones, balanced exposure, film-like contrast. Out of the box it looks more like a graded short film than the other two.
Multi-character dialogue with phoneme-level lip-sync. Two people having a conversation, each mouth synced to their own line. That is new in 2026.
Character consistency across scenes. Not as bulletproof as Seedance's signature multi-shot feature, but good enough for narrative clips that change setting or lighting.
4K image generation alongside video, useful if you want matching stills for thumbnails or ads.
Where Kling 3.0 falls down:
Camera movement prompts are weakly followed. Ask for a pullback into a rotation and Kling will produce a great-looking clip that ignores the movement you asked for.
Objects in the scene often render as "fake" on close inspection. Noodles in a food-toss shot. Paper in a street scene. The colors and composition are right; the object surfaces are not.
Regional pricing and plan changes. Ultra went from $127 to $180 per month in January 2026, a 41 percent hike. Confusing if you are pricing it for a business.
Best use case: character scenes, dialogue, atmospheric storytelling, anything that needs cinematic color without a grade pass in post. Clip length up to 15 seconds. Resolution 1080p on standard, 4K on image generation. Audio native, supports multi-language. Free tier gives 66 credits per day.
Seedance is ByteDance's entry (same company as TikTok and CapCut). Version 2.0 shipped February 10, 2026 and immediately became the model independent reviewers stopped arguing about.
What Seedance 2.0 gets right:
Physics simulation that actually looks physical. In the April 11 head-to-head, Seedance was the only model that handled a noodle toss with real weight (slow at peak, accelerating on descent), a flame eruption triggered by the impact, and water rippling in response. No other model chained cause-and-effect like that.
Multi-shot character consistency from one prompt. Feed it "same musician in four scenes: sunny, rain, golden hour, snow night" and the face, jacket, and guitar stay consistent across all four. This is the signature capability the other two do not have.
Multi-modal inputs. You can stack up to nine reference images, three videos, and three audio files into a single prompt. Useful for brand work where you want style lock to existing assets.
Chained camera movements that flow. Rise, rotate, pullback, reveal, all in one continuous motion without the fragmentation Veo suffers from.
Where Seedance 2.0 falls down:
Visual detail at extreme close range is a half-step behind Veo. Light refraction, micro-texture, surface interaction at the dewdrop level is where Veo still wins.
Small motion drift. In one test clip, a secondary hand moved without purpose. It is the kind of artifact that disappears in an edit but shows up in the raw generation.
Particle effects (snow, fine rain) look slightly soft versus Veo or Kling.
Best use case: product ads with physical interaction, UGC with a recurring character, multi-scene narrative from a single brief, anything that benefits from stacking reference images. Clip length 4 to 15 seconds. Resolution 1080p or 2K at 24fps. Audio native synced with phoneme-level lip-sync. Available via Jimeng/Dreamina (ByteDance), fal.ai API, and bundled inside Higgsfield.
Head to head test across physics, prompt adherence, camera movement, visual detail, and character consistency
Veo 3.1 pricing breakdown, API tiers and consumer plans
Veo is the only one of the three where the vendor publishes per-second API pricing on a public doc page, so this is the cleanest table to cite.
Veo 3.1 API pricing (Gemini API, verified April 2026)
Standard is the reference-quality Google model. Use it for hero shots, client deliverables, anything that ships to a viewer who will scrutinize the image.
Fast is the creative testing tier. Eight times cheaper at 720p than Standard. The quality drop is visible on close-up detail but invisible at social-feed sizes. Most marketing tests should default here.
Lite launched March 31, 2026 and is the cheapest Veo option by far. A 10-second clip at 720p costs $0.50. For high-volume ad variation testing, this is the entry point.
Consumer plans (via Google AI subscription, for non-API users):
Google AI Plus: $7.99 per month (entry tier)
Google AI Pro: $19.99 per month with 1,000 monthly credits. Unlocks Veo 3.1 Fast and limited Flow access.
Google AI Ultra: $249.99 per month with 25,000 monthly credits. Full Veo 3.1 Standard.
If you are running Veo via the Gemini API instead of a subscription, you pay per second at the tier you pick. If you are a consumer pinging Flow a few times a week, the AI Pro plan is usually the break-even point. If you are doing anything serious, go API.
Kling AI pricing breakdown, plans, credits and API cost
Kling has the most confusing pricing of the three. Plans are sold in credits that do not roll over, credit cost per video varies by model version, and the same plan can show different prices in different regions.
Plan tiers (klingai.com, April 2026 snapshot):
Kling AI plan tiers (April 2026)
Plan
US price (intro or renewal)
Monthly credits
Kling 3.0 access
Free
$0
66 per day
Limited
Standard
$6.99 to $10
660
Basic
Pro
$25.99 to $37
3,000
Yes
Premier
$64.99 intro, $80.96 renewal
8,000
Yes, priority
Ultra
$127.99 intro, $159.99 to $180 renewal
26,000
Yes, early access
Credit cost per video (same 5-second clip, different Kling models):
Kling 2.1 Pro: 270 credits
Kling 2.5 Pro: 210 credits (newer model, cheaper per clip)
Kling 2.6 Pro: 420 credits
Kling 3.0 Pro: 600 credits for a 3-second clip (highest quality tier)
API pricing via fal.ai (Kling 2.1 Master endpoint):
The real-world math. On the Pro plan (3,000 credits for $25.99 intro), you can generate roughly ten 5-second Kling 2.5 videos before running out. That works out to about $2.60 per clip, close to the fal.ai API rate. On the Ultra plan, per-credit cost drops to around $0.0069, or about $1.40 per Kling 3.0 clip.
Why pricing looks different depending on where you check. Kling ran an Ultra price increase in January 2026 (up 41 percent), and the platform runs different intro promos per region. If you see a plan listed at $127, $159, $180, or Chinese-yuan equivalents, they are all real. They are just different cohorts and billing cycles.
Seedance 2.0 pricing breakdown, API rate and consumer apps
Seedance pricing is the simplest of the three, because most people access it through fal.ai's hosted API or ByteDance's consumer apps.
API pricing via fal.ai (Seedance 2.0 endpoint):
Seedance 2.0 API pricing (fal.ai, verified April 2026)
Jimeng (Dreamina) Pro membership: approximately 69 RMB ($9.60 USD) per month.
Doubao app and web: daily free allowance, no subscription required.
Xiaoyunque app: limited-time free trial.
seedance.tv (third-party wrapper): Pro tier starts around $20 per month.
The real-world math. On the fal.ai API, a 10-second 720p Seedance Standard clip runs $3.03. Same clip on the Fast tier is $2.42. That is cheaper than Kling's API ($2.80 for 10 seconds on 2.1 Master) and dramatically cheaper than Veo 3.1 Standard ($4.00 for 10 seconds at 1080p). If you are testing volume, the Seedance 2.0 Fast tier is close to the cost sweet spot. Quality is very close to Standard, and you pay 20 percent less per second.
What's coming: ByteDance has confirmed Seedance 2.5 for mid-2026, targeting 4K output and near real-time generation. Expect pricing to restructure when 2.5 ships.
Head to head, the real cost per 10-second clip
Here is where the pricing conversation actually resolves. Same output length (10 seconds), same resolution (720p where available), all numbers from each vendor's API pricing page.
Cost per 10-second AI video clip, Veo vs Kling vs Seedance (April 2026)
Tool
Cost per 10-sec clip
Audio
Resolution cap
Notes
Veo 3.1 Lite
$0.50
Yes
1080p
Cheapest overall
Veo 3.1 Fast
$1.00
Yes
4K ($3.00)
Best value at 1080p
Kling 2.1 Master (fal.ai)
$2.80
Implicit
1080p
$1.40 for first 5s + $0.28/s
Seedance 2.0 Fast
$2.42
Yes
720p or 1080p
Cheapest physics-capable model
Seedance 2.0 Standard
$3.03
Yes
720p or 1080p
Multi-shot consistency included
Veo 3.1 Standard
$4.00
Yes
1080p ($6.00 for 4K)
Best surface detail, highest cost
The uncomfortable read: if you only care about cost per usable clip at a respectable 720p or 1080p resolution, Veo 3.1 Lite wins outright at $0.50 per ten seconds. Nothing else is close.
The honest read: cheapest is not the same as best. Veo 3.1 Lite is a different-quality model from Veo 3.1 Standard. If your client campaign needs the surface-detail polish, Lite will not get you there. Same with Seedance Fast versus Standard. You save 20 percent on Fast but the physics realism that makes Seedance worth using on product ads is sharper on Standard.
Rule of thumb from actual testing:
If the clip is going on a TikTok feed, use the cheapest tier of whichever tool fits the use case.
If the clip is a hero shot, B-roll for a landing page, or anything a viewer pauses on, use Standard.
Per-clip cost across all six tiers, from Veo Lite at $0.50 to Veo Standard at $4.00
Best AI video generator for product ads and eCommerce
Product ads have three requirements that matter more than looking pretty: the product must be recognisable, the physical interaction must be believable, and the motion must loop or cut without jarring.
Winner: Seedance 2.0 Standard.
Here is why. In Youri van Hofwegen's April 11 head-to-head, the physics round was decisive. The prompt asked for a noodle toss, flame eruption on impact, and a glass of water ripple from the vibration. Seedance was the only model where the noodles moved with real weight (slow at peak, accelerating on descent), the flame triggered on impact, and the water responded to the vibration. Kling's colors looked right but the noodles themselves rendered as fake. Veo handled the fire well but fumbled the toss arc.
For product ads, this matters. A perfume bottle spraying mist, a skincare serum dropping onto skin, a sneaker planting on pavement, a dress swishing in motion. The difference between "looks AI" and "looks real" is whether the physics chain holds. Seedance's chain holds.
When to pick Veo 3.1 Standard instead: if your product is static and you want the extreme close-up polish (jewelry, watches, luxury packaging, food hero shots where texture is the entire sell). Veo's surface detail is still the ceiling.
When to pick Kling 3.0 instead: almost never for pure product ads, unless the ad is a character holding or using the product and you want the cinematic color grade. Kling's product-object rendering is weak.
If your product ad is specifically for eCommerce with a model actually holding or demoing the product, Potion Ads is a different category of tool worth considering, built for eCommerce UGC rather than general video generation.
Budget play for testing: generate your physics-heavy variations on Seedance 2.0 Fast ($2.42 per ten seconds), pick the winner, re-generate the winner on Standard for the final ship. That is 20 percent cheaper than going Standard on all variations.
Best AI video generator for UGC and social ad creative
UGC-style ads have different rules. The "creator" needs to look consistent if they appear in more than one clip. The motion is casual, not cinematic. Resolution matters less because the final output is feed-sized. Cost per variation matters a lot because you are testing twenty concepts, not one.
Winner: Seedance 2.0 (for character consistency) or Veo 3.1 Lite (for cost-led mass testing).
This one splits depending on whether you need a recurring character or not.
If your UGC ad needs the same "creator" across multiple clips: Seedance 2.0 Standard. The multi-shot character consistency feature is the only one in this comparison that keeps a face, outfit, and setting lock across different shots in a single generation. Reviewers confirm the character stays consistent through sunny, rain, golden hour, and snowy night weather changes.
If your UGC is single-shot pattern-interrupt creative you are testing at volume: Veo 3.1 Lite. At $0.05 per second 720p with native audio, you can generate fifty variations for the price of ten Seedance Standard clips. Filter the winners manually, re-generate at higher quality if needed.
Where Kling fits: talking-head UGC with dialogue. Kling 3.0's multi-character lip-sync is sharper than Seedance's for straight conversation clips. If your UGC ad is "person explains product to camera," start on Kling. For production-grade talking-head UGC specifically (actor library, multi-variant batch generation), Arcads is a different tool category worth comparing.
Budget reality check: a competent UGC ad test run usually needs 20 to 40 variations to find one that converts. On Veo Lite that is $10 to $20 of compute. On Seedance Fast that is $50 to $100. On Seedance Standard that is $60 to $120. Plan accordingly.
Best AI video generator for cinematic and brand film work
Cinematic work is where the comparison tightens. Every model produces something that looks cinematic. The question is which one holds up under a professional eye.
Winner: Kling 3.0 for grade, Veo 3.1 Standard for close-up, Seedance 2.0 for camera sequences.
No single tool wins cinematic work outright. The right answer depends on what cinematic means for your brief.
Kling 3.0 for color and atmosphere. Out of the box Kling's grading is the closest to a graded short film. Warm tones, film contrast, balanced exposure. If you are producing mood-led brand film and do not have a colorist downstream, Kling will get you closest to a finished look.
Veo 3.1 Standard for surface-level polish. If the brief leans heavy on extreme close-ups (water droplets, skin texture, dust in a sunbeam, steam rising from coffee), Veo is the ceiling. Light refracts, surfaces interact, the image holds up at 4K. Pay the premium for this one use case.
Seedance 2.0 for camera choreography. Chained camera movements (rise, rotate, pullback, reveal) flow in Seedance where they fragment in Veo. If your brand film has a signature camera move that has to land, start on Seedance.
Most honest cinematic workflow: split the job across tools. Hero close-ups on Veo. Moving camera sequences on Seedance. Color-led atmospheric shots on Kling. Cut them together. The cost is a mid-tier Kling subscription plus fal.ai API credits, probably $50 to $100 for a finished short brand film.
The bottom line, pick by fit not by brand
There is no winner. There is a fit.
Pick Seedance 2.0 if you need physics realism, multi-shot character consistency, or chained camera movements. Use the Fast tier for volume testing, Standard for final output. This is the most versatile model in the comparison and the default choice for marketers shipping product ads and UGC.
Pick Veo 3.1 if your job is close-up polish, native synced audio, or mass creative testing at the Lite tier. Standard for hero shots, Lite for volume, Fast as the mid-tier default.
Pick Kling 3.0 if your job is character dialogue, cinematic color grading, or longer 15-second narrative clips.
Do not pick one and commit. The Higgsfield subscription bundles all three on a single account. That is the cheapest way to keep all three on tap until your use case concentrates.
Frequently asked questions
Is Veo 3.1 free?
Veo 3.1 is not free to run on unlimited generation. Google's consumer AI plans start at $7.99 per month (Google AI Plus) and unlock limited Veo 3.1 Fast access on the $19.99 Pro tier. The free Google AI tier does not include Veo video generation. Via the Gemini API, you pay per second ($0.05 at the Lite tier 720p) with no flat subscription.
Is Kling AI free?
Yes, partially. Kling's free tier gives you 66 credits per day, enough for roughly one or two 5-second clips on Kling 2.5 Pro. Kling 3.0 access is limited on the free tier. For unlimited use you need at least the $6.99 Standard plan.
Which AI video generator is cheapest for high-volume testing?
Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.05 per second 720p. A 10-second clip is 50 cents. Nothing else in the comparison is close. The quality trade-off is noticeable on extreme close-ups but invisible at social-feed sizes.
Which one renders humans most realistically?
Depends on the shot. For close-up faces with fine detail, Veo 3.1 Standard at 1080p or 4K. For multi-scene character consistency across different lighting and weather, Seedance 2.0 Standard. For dialogue scenes with multi-character lip-sync, Kling 3.0.
Can I use these for commercial client campaigns?
Yes, at the right tier. Veo 3.1 via the Gemini API includes commercial use rights. Kling on the Pro tier and above includes commercial use. Seedance via fal.ai API includes commercial use. Check your plan's license terms before deploying, and never assume a free-tier or consumer-app subscription (especially ByteDance's Jimeng) covers Western commercial deployment.
How often do these AI video models update?
Approximately every six to eight weeks. Veo 3.1 Lite shipped March 31, Seedance 2.0 shipped February 10, Kling 3.0 shipped February 5. Expect Seedance 2.5 in mid-2026. Price and feature snapshots in this article are accurate as of April 2026 and will age.
How we verified the pricing and claims in this article
The pricing and feature claims above were triangulated against the following sources before publish:
4. Youri van Hofwegen's April 11 head-to-head comparison (secondary, independent creator test, transcript verified): use-case winners for physics, prompt adherence, camera movement, visual detail, and character consistency.
5. Secondary aggregate review sources (Imagine.art, AI Tool Analysis, Costgoat, GlobalGPT, CheckThat.ai) used to corroborate consumer subscription tier pricing where vendor pages were region-gated or behind bot protection.
Consumer subscription prices (Kling plan tiers, Google AI subscription tiers, Jimeng/Dreamina rate) are noted as third-party-sourced where the vendor page was not directly accessible. API pricing in the head-to-head table is from vendor primary sources only.
If a claim in this article contradicts your first-hand experience, please flag it. Prices in this category rot fast.
Clear Next Step
A clear next step: the lowest-hanging fruit that will move the needle fastest
Honest Assessment
An honest assessment, because if you do not need me I will say so. This is a strategy session, not a sales pitch
