Runway pricing: plans, credits and cost per second

Runway’s paid plans start at $12 a month billed yearly (Standard, $15 month to month) for 625 credits a month, which buys about 52 seconds of video from its Gen-4.5 model at 12 credits a second. That works out to roughly $0.23 per second of Gen-4.5 video on Standard, falling to about $0.10 per second on the $76-a-month Max plan, while Runway’s developer API charges $0.01 a credit, or $0.12 per Gen-4.5 second. Prices in US dollars, as of October 2026.

We haven’t generated video on Runway ourselves. The plan prices and credit costs below come from Runway’s pricing page and its API pricing page, both read October 29, 2026, and match AskGPU’s Runway data (checked October 18, 2026). The per-second figures are our own arithmetic from those numbers. Runway doesn’t publish quality comparisons between models, and neither do we.

How much does Runway cost per month?

Runway sells four self-serve plans for individuals, plus a Team plan for groups of 2 to 9 people.

Plan	Billed yearly	Billed monthly	Credits	Rollover	Storage
Free	$0	$0	125, once (not monthly)	n/a	5 GB
Standard	$12/mo ($144/yr)	$15/mo	625 a month	No	20 GB
Pro	$28/mo ($336/yr)	$35/mo	2,250 a month	No	100 GB
Max	$76/mo ($912/yr)	$95/mo	9,500 a month	Up to 1 month	500 GB
Team	$55 per seat/mo	$69 per seat/mo	6,900 per seat a month, pooled	Up to 1 month	1 TB per workspace

Team figures are from our Runway page (checked October 18, 2026); the other rows are on Runway’s pricing page as read today.

What the paid tiers add beyond credits, per the pricing page:

• Standard: “No watermarks,” 4K upscaling, up to 3 projects and 5 parallel generations.
• Pro: 15 parallel generations, up to 5 projects, 1 Brand Kit, 1 custom voice clone, “Unlimited 4K video upscaling,” Runway MCP, and “Top-up credits anytime.”
• Max: 20 parallel generations, up to 10 projects, 3 Brand Kits, 3 voice clones, early access to new models, and HDR, ProRes and image-sequence exports.

Yearly billing saves $36 on Standard, $84 on Pro and $228 on Max, as Runway’s page states. Over a full year that is $144 against $180 for Standard, $336 against $420 for Pro, and $912 against $1,140 for Max.

What does a credit buy?

Credits are, in Runway’s words, “the unit you spend to generate images, video, and audio on Runway.” Each model costs a set number of credits depending on model, duration and resolution. The pricing page lists these costs for the main models in the app:

Model in the Runway app	Credits as listed	Credits per second
Gen-4.5	60 per 5-second clip	12
Aleph 2.0	140 per 5-second clip	28
Kling 4.0 (1080p)	118 per 5-second clip (89 with a 25% discount until November 30)	23.6 (17.8 discounted)
Seedance 2.0 Pro (1080p)	160 per 4-second clip	40
Gen-4 Image (1080p)	8 per image	n/a
Gen-4 Image Turbo	2 per image	n/a
Text to Speech	1 per 50 characters	n/a

The per-second column is our division of Runway’s per-clip figures. Runway’s FAQ confirms the Gen-4.5 rate: “Gen-4.5 uses 12 credits per second of generated video.”

So the same 625 credits on Standard stretch very differently by model:

Plan credits	Gen-4.5	Aleph 2.0	Seedance 2.0 Pro	Kling 4.0 (full price)
Free, 125 once	about 10 s	about 4 s	about 3 s	about 5 s
Standard, 625/mo	about 52 s	about 22 s	about 16 s	about 26 s
Pro, 2,250/mo	about 188 s	about 80 s	about 56 s	about 95 s
Max, 9,500/mo	about 792 s (13.2 min)	about 339 s	about 238 s	about 403 s

These are seconds of generated output, before you throw away takes you don’t like. Runway doesn’t publish how many attempts a usable clip takes, and it varies by prompt, so plan on spending more than the finished runtime.

What does Runway cost per second of video?

Dividing each plan’s price by its credits gives an effective price per credit. Multiply by 12 for Gen-4.5:

Plan and billing	Price per credit	Gen-4.5 per second	Gen-4.5 per minute
Standard, monthly ($15 / 625)	$0.0240	$0.29	$17.28
Standard, yearly ($144 / 7,500)	$0.0192	$0.23	$13.82
Pro, monthly ($35 / 2,250)	$0.0156	$0.19	$11.20
Pro, yearly ($336 / 27,000)	$0.0124	$0.15	$8.96
Max, monthly ($95 / 9,500)	$0.0100	$0.12	$7.20
Max, yearly ($912 / 114,000)	$0.0080	$0.10	$5.76
Developer API (pay as you go)	$0.0100	$0.12	$7.20

Two things follow from this table:

• Bigger plans are cheaper per second, but only if you use the credits. Standard and Pro credits “don’t roll over” and reset within 24 hours of your billing date, according to Runway’s FAQ. An unused month on Standard means you paid $12 to $15 for nothing.
• The API costs the same per credit as Max on monthly billing. For a developer generating video from code, $0.01 a credit with no subscription can beat Standard or Pro, provided the volume is irregular.

How much does a 60-second video cost on Runway?

Here is a worked example. Say you want a 60-second ad made of twelve 5-second Gen-4.5 shots, and you expect to generate three takes for every shot you keep. That three-takes figure is our assumption for illustration, not a Runway number.

• Credits for one take: 5 seconds × 12 credits = 60 credits
• Takes needed: 12 shots × 3 takes = 36 takes
• Total: 36 × 60 = 2,160 credits

How that lands on each option:

• Standard (625 a month): not enough in one month. 2,160 ÷ 625 = 3.5 months of credits. Runway lists top-ups only on Pro, so on Standard you’d wait for the next reset or upgrade.
• Pro (2,250 a month): fits in one month with 90 credits to spare. Cost: $35 on monthly billing, or $28 a month on a yearly plan.
• API: 2,160 × $0.01 = $21.60, with no subscription, but you need to build or use a tool that calls the API.

If the same ad used Seedance 2.0 Pro at 40 credits a second, three takes of twelve 5-second shots would be 36 × 200 = 7,200 credits, which fits only in Max (9,500) among the individual plans.

What does Veo cost through Runway?

Runway’s app pricing page doesn’t list Google’s Veo models, but its developer API pricing page does, alongside other third-party models. At $0.01 a credit:

Model on the Runway API	Credits per second	Price per second
Gen-4.5	12	$0.12
Gen-4 Turbo	5	$0.05
Aleph 2.0	28	$0.28
Veo 3.1, with audio	40	$0.40
Veo 3.1, no audio	20	$0.20
Veo 3.1 Fast, with audio	15	$0.15
Veo 3.1 Fast, no audio	10	$0.10
Kling 3.0 Pro, with audio	17	$0.17
Wan 3, 1080p	20	$0.20
Seedance 2, 1080p	40	$0.40

Some models carry minimums: Aleph 2.0 has a 56-credit minimum per generation and Seedance 2 a 56-credit minimum, according to the same page. Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0 also add 5 credits a second for ProRes or PNG-sequence output.

We also checked Google’s own Gemini API pricing page (last updated October 28, 2026). It didn’t show a Veo price on the day we read it, so we can’t compare Runway’s Veo rate with buying from Google directly. If you plan to use Veo heavily, check Google’s Veo documentation before choosing.

What do you get free, and can you use it commercially?

The Free plan is “Free forever” and comes with 125 one-time credits that, per the pricing page, don’t expire. That’s roughly 10 seconds of Gen-4.5. It’s enough to try the interface, not to make a project. Runway’s page promises “No watermarks” on Standard; it doesn’t state the watermark policy for Free.

On ownership, Runway’s terms of use (last updated October 23, 2026) say: “The Company does not claim ownership of any of your Inputs or Outputs,” and “the Company does not restrict your commercial use of your Outputs,” subject to following the agreement. The terms don’t carve out the Free plan. They do bar using outputs to build competing products, and they grant Runway a license to use your inputs and outputs, including for training its models. Read section 4 of the terms if that matters to your business.

How can you keep the Runway bill down?

Runway’s own pricing rules suggest a few ways to spend fewer credits, all based on the figures above:

• Draft on cheaper models, finish on expensive ones. On the API, Gen-4 Turbo is 5 credits a second against 12 for Gen-4.5, 28 for Aleph 2.0 and 40 for Veo 3.1 with audio. Testing a prompt on a cheaper model first costs less than iterating on the top one. The app’s plan blurbs also mention Gen-4 Turbo, but its exact app rate isn’t in the pricing page’s model table.
• Test shots as images. Gen-4 Image Turbo costs 2 credits an image, and Gen-4 Image 8 credits at 1080p. A few image tests cost less than one second of Gen-4.5 video.
• Turn audio off on Veo when you’ll add your own. On Runway’s API, Veo 3.1 costs 40 credits a second with audio and 20 without; Veo 3.1 Fast is 15 and 10.
• Pick the billing that matches your months. If you’ll use Runway for two months on a project, two months of Pro at $35 ($70) beats a year of Standard ($144) if you need more than 625 credits a month.
• Spend credits before the reset. On Standard and Pro, credits reset within 24 hours of your billing date and don’t carry over.

What to watch for before you pay

• Credits expire monthly on Standard and Pro. Only Max (and Team) roll unused credits over, and only for one month.
• Top-ups are a Pro feature. The pricing page lists “Top-up credits anytime” under Pro, with a 1,000-credit minimum. It doesn’t print a top-up price per credit. Purchased credits “never expire,” per the page.
• No refunds by default. Runway’s terms say “all fees for the Services are non-refundable,” though it “may provide a refund upon request” at its discretion. Cancelling stops the next renewal, but you get no prorated refund for the rest of the term.
• Auto-renewal. The terms say Runway “will automatically charge your payment method each renewal period.” Cancel from the Plans & Billing page in your account.
• Downgrades. Runway’s FAQ says upgrades apply at once and are prorated; on a downgrade, the unused balance becomes a credit toward your next billing cycle.
• Model prices change. The Kling 4.0 discount in the app runs until November 30, and the API’s Kling 4 discount runs through November 30, 2026 UTC. After that, those models cost more credits per second.
• Teams need the Team plan. According to our data, Standard, Pro and Max became individual plans in September 2026; adding members to a workspace needs Team, at $55 a seat billed yearly.

Which Runway plan should you choose?

• Just curious: the Free plan. 125 credits show you the tools; don’t expect a finished video.
• Occasional social clips or B-roll: Standard at $12 a month yearly, if 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 a month covers you. If not, skip straight to Pro: at $28 yearly it gives 3.6 times the credits for 2.3 times the price.
• Regular producers making ads or short films: Pro, for the extra credits and top-ups, or Max if you use the expensive models (Aleph, Seedance) or need credits to roll over.
• Developers and apps: the API at $0.01 a credit, which lets you call Gen-4.5, Veo 3.1, Kling and others without a monthly plan.
• Small teams of 2 to 9: Team. Three seats billed yearly cost 3 × $55 × 12 = $1,980 a year for a pooled 20,700 credits a month.
• Talking-head or presenter videos: Runway isn’t built for that. An avatar tool like HeyGen or Synthesia fits better; see our HeyGen and Synthesia alternatives guide.

For how Runway fits into a full content workflow with voice and editing tools, see the cost of a faceless YouTube channel with AI, and browse other video tools on our AI video hub.

Sources

• Runway: Pricing, read October 29, 2026
• Runway API: Pricing and costs, read October 29, 2026
• Runway: Terms of use, last updated October 23, 2026, read October 29, 2026
• Google AI for Developers: Gemini API pricing, last updated October 28, 2026, read October 29, 2026
• AskGPU data: Runway plans, including the Team plan (checked October 18, 2026)