# Best AI Video Generators in 2026: What's Available and What It Costs

> Sora 2 and Veo 3 are retired. Gemini Omni, Kling, Seedance, Runway, Luma and Grok remain, from $0.02 to $0.78 a second, with sound on most of them.

- Published: 2026-10-14
- Updated: 2026-10-14
- Author: SecretCrush AI Editorial
- Category: Guides
- Canonical URL: https://secretcrush.ai/blog/best-ai-video-generators

## The short answer

The AI video market in October 2026 looks different from a year ago. **Sora 2 is gone**, **Veo 3 is gone**, and Google is moving developers from Veo 3.1 to **Gemini Omni**. Native sound is now standard on the leading models, and single clips run from 8 to 30 seconds.

- **Best all-round from a big provider:** **Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash**, about $0.10 a second at 720p, with sound, extendable to 40 seconds.
- **Longest single clip:** **Seedance 2.5**, up to 30 seconds.
- **Highest resolution:** **Seedance 2.0** at 4K 10-bit; **Kling 3.0** also offers a 4K tier.
- **Editing footage you already have:** **Runway Aleph 2.0**.
- **Cheapest drafts:** **Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite** at $0.02 a second.
- **Open weights:** **MiniMax H3** (with sound) and **HunyuanVideo 1.5**, both with regional licence limits, or the older **Mochi 1** under Apache 2.0.

All prices are the makers' list prices on 14 October 2026 unless marked otherwise. They change often, so check them again before you budget.

## What is no longer available

Older "best AI video generator" lists may still recommend tools you can no longer use.

| Model | Status on 14 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro (OpenAI) | Retired. Notice given 24 March 2026; app and website offline 26 April; API removed 24 September. No replacement named |
| Veo 3 and Veo 3 Fast (Google) | Removed from the Gemini API on 30 June 2026 |
| Veo 3.1, Fast and Lite (Google) | Preview endpoints scheduled to shut down on **22 October 2026**; Google names Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash as the replacement |
| Runway Aleph, first version | API sunset on 30 July 2026, replaced by Aleph 2.0 (21 May 2026) |

Sora 2 could reach 120 seconds by chaining extensions. Nothing still on the market matches that in one go.

## The hosted video generators compared

| Model | Maker | Released | Max length | Max resolution | Sound | Image-to-video | Price per second |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash | Google DeepMind | GA 27 Aug 2026 | 10 s, extend to 40 s | 720p; 360p drafts; upscale to 1080p or 4K | Yes | Yes, plus first/last frame and audio and video references | About $0.10 (720p) |
| Veo 3.1 / Fast / Lite | Google DeepMind | Oct 2025 to Mar 2026 | 8 s per clip | 4K (not Lite) | Yes | Yes, with reference images | $0.40 Standard; $0.10 to $0.30 Fast; $0.05 to $0.08 Lite |
| Seedance 2.5 | ByteDance | Jun 2026 | **30 s** | 1080p 10-bit | Yes | Yes, up to 50 reference assets | $0.103 (480p) to $0.569 (1080p) |
| Seedance 2.0 | ByteDance | Feb 2026 | 15 s | **4K 10-bit** | Yes | Yes | $0.07 (480p) to $0.78 (4K) |
| Kling 3.0 / 3.0 Omni | Kuaishou | 5 Feb 2026 | 15 s; up to 6 shots | 4K tier | Yes | Yes | $0.112 to $0.17; 4K $0.43 (reseller) |
| Runway Gen-4.5 | Runway | 1 Dec 2025 | 10 s | Not stated | Added Dec 2025 (reported) | Yes | $0.12 |
| Runway Gen-4 Turbo | Runway | 2025 | 10 s | Not stated | No | Yes | $0.05 |
| Luma Ray3.2 | Luma AI | 9 Jun 2026 | 20 s | 1080p, 16-bit HDR | Not mentioned | Yes, up to 16 keyframes | $0.06 (720p), $0.24 (1080p) |
| FLUX 3 Video | Black Forest Labs | Early access, Jul 2026 | 20 s | Up to "uhd" tier | Yes | Yes | $0.17 (hd) to $0.80 (uhd); drafts $0.06 |
| Hailuo 2.3 / 2.3 Fast | MiniMax | 28 Oct 2025 | 10 s | 1080p | Not stated | Yes | $0.49 per 6 s at 1080p; Fast $0.19 per 6 s at 768p |
| Grok Imagine video / 1.5 / 1.5 Lite | xAI | Not confirmed | 15 s | Not confirmed | Optional | Yes | $0.05 / $0.08 / $0.02 |
| Midjourney Video V1 | Midjourney | 18 Jun 2025 | 5 s, extend to about 21 s | Not stated | No | Image-to-video only | Included in subscription |

*Official list prices per second unless marked. 'Reseller' means the figure comes from an API reseller's price list, not the maker's own page. Checked 14 October 2026.*

Luma prices per clip ($0.30 for 5 seconds at 720p, $1.20 at 1080p); the table divides by five. Pika still operates on plans of $10 and $35 a month, but we could not confirm the date or specs of its current model, so it is not in the table.

## What an 8-second clip costs

Per-second prices are hard to compare in your head, so here is the same 8-second clip on each service at the list prices above. Eight seconds is Veo 3.1's clip length and a common default.

| Model and setting | 8 seconds |
|---|---|
| Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite | $0.16 |
| Veo 3.1 Lite | $0.40 to $0.64 |
| Runway Gen-4 Turbo | $0.40 |
| Luma Ray3.2, 720p | $0.48 |
| FLUX 3 Video, draft | $0.48 |
| Seedance 2.0, 480p | $0.56 |
| MiniMax H3 via API, 768p | $0.64 |
| Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash, 720p | About $0.80 |
| Seedance 2.5, 480p | $0.82 |
| Kling 3.0 (reseller) | $0.90 to $1.36 |
| Runway Gen-4.5 | $0.96 |
| FLUX 3 Video, hd | $1.36 |
| Luma Ray3.2, 1080p | $1.92 |
| Veo 3.1 Standard | $3.20 |
| Seedance 2.5, 1080p | $4.55 |
| Seedance 2.0, 4K | $6.24 |

You will rarely keep the first take, so budget for three or four generations per usable clip. That turns a $0.80 clip into $2.40 to $3.20 of spend.

## Open-weight video models

If you would rather run a model on your own hardware, these are the main options. Every one has a licence condition that matters more than its benchmark.

| Model | Maker | Released | Size | Output | Sound | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MiniMax H3 | MiniMax | Jul 2026 | 33B | 4 to 15 s, 768p, 2K via a second pass | Yes, stereo | **Excludes the EU, UK, South Korea and the USA** without separate permission |
| HunyuanVideo 1.5 | Tencent | 20 Nov 2025 | 8.3B | 480p and 720p, upscaler to 1080p | No | **Not valid in the EU, UK or South Korea** |
| Mochi 1 (preview) | Genmo | 22 Oct 2024 | 10B | 480p, about 5 s | No | Apache 2.0 |

*From each model's own card, paper and licence file, checked 14 October 2026.*

In the EU and the UK, that leaves Mochi 1, an older and smaller model, as the only one in this table with a fully permissive licence.

## How AI video learned to talk

Until recently, sound was added afterwards. One approach generated the video, then a separate model redrew the mouth to match an audio track; the 2020 Wav2Lip paper trained that redrawing against a "lip-sync expert" that judged whether lips matched sound. Meta's Movie Gen research (2024) used a dedicated audio model to add effects and music to a finished clip.

The current generation makes picture and sound together in one model, so a door slam or a spoken word lands on the right frame instead of being matched up afterwards. Google says Veo 3 was its first model with dialogue and sound effects, and that very short speech segments are still "an area of active development". If lip movement matters to you, test short lines of dialogue before you commit to a service.

## Verdicts by use case

**You want one reliable service for everything.** Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash. It takes text, images, audio and short video clips as references, makes sound, drafts cheaply at 360p and upscales to 4K.

**You need long, single takes.** Seedance 2.5 (30 seconds) or Luma Ray3.2 (20 seconds with up to 16 keyframes to steer the action).

**You deliver to film or broadcast.** Luma Ray3.2 for 16-bit HDR at 1080p, or Seedance 2.0 for 4K 10-bit.

**You already have footage and want to change it.** Runway Aleph 2.0 edits up to 30 seconds of 1080p video from a text instruction.

**You want to animate a still image.** Every model in the table does image-to-video. Midjourney's video model does only that, which suits people already making stills there. If you are animating the same character across clips, our [guide to consistent AI characters](https://secretcrush.ai/blog/consistent-ai-character-images) explains why identity drifts and how reference images help.

**You want to start from a good image.** An image-to-video clip is only as good as its first frame. Our [comparison of AI image generators](https://secretcrush.ai/blog/best-ai-image-generators) covers the models that make them.

## Watermarks, labels and content rules

Google marks Veo and Gemini Omni output with SynthID, an invisible watermark, and Omni adds C2PA metadata as well. In the EU, the AI Act's labelling rules have applied since 2 August 2026: providers of generative AI must mark synthetic video in a machine-readable way.

The mainstream services also restrict content. Google's policy prohibits sexually explicit material. Runway and Luma ban explicit adult content in their terms, ByteDance's BytePlus policy does too, and MiniMax's model card says content it suspects is unlawful or explicit may be blocked. OpenAI's Sora API accepted only content suitable for audiences under 18. Pika bans non-consensual content and anything obscene under applicable law; we found no blanket clause on adult content. We could not retrieve current rules for Kling or Grok Imagine. Our [explainer on why AI generators block adult content](https://secretcrush.ai/blog/why-ai-image-generators-block-adult-content) covers the reasons and the laws behind them.

Adult-focused services for verified 18+ users exist alongside these, under their own terms and age checks.

## How we checked

We read each maker's own model pages, prices, licences and usage policies on 14 October 2026, and the 8-second costs are our arithmetic on those list prices. We did not generate test clips, so nothing here ranks visual quality.

## The easier way: SecretCrush AI

Every service above needs a good still to start from, a per-second budget and three or four takes per usable clip. If you want short videos of a character without managing any of that, **SecretCrush AI** handles it for you.

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- **Consistent.** The same character keeps the same look from one picture to the next.
- **Alive.** You chat with your character in immersive, realistic roleplay and ask for a picture or a video right inside the conversation.

A free account gets 10 messages a day, every day. Premium gives you unlimited messages with advanced memory and 500 bonus coins every month (600 on the yearly plan), from $8.99 a month on the yearly plan or $16.99 month to month. An image costs 6 coins, and coin packs ($10 for 300 coins) are open to free accounts too.

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## FAQ

**Q: Is Sora 2 still available?**

A: No. OpenAI gave notice on 24 March 2026, took the Sora app and website offline on 26 April 2026 and removed Sora 2 from its API on 24 September 2026. It has not named a replacement.

**Q: What replaced Veo 3?**

A: Veo 3 left the Gemini API on 30 June 2026. Veo 3.1's preview endpoints are scheduled to shut down on 22 October 2026, and Google's replacement is Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash, generally available since 27 August 2026 at about $0.10 per second of 720p video.

**Q: Which AI video generator makes the longest clips?**

A: Of the models we checked, Seedance 2.5 makes the longest single clip, up to 30 seconds. FLUX 3 Video and Luma Ray3.2 reach 20 seconds, and Gemini Omni reaches 40 seconds by extending a clip in 10-second steps.

**Q: Do AI video generators make sound now?**

A: Most of the leading ones do. Veo 3.1, Gemini Omni, Kling 2.6 and later, Seedance 1.5 and later, FLUX 3 Video and MiniMax H3 generate audio together with the picture.

**Q: Can I run an AI video model on my own computer?**

A: Yes, with open-weight models such as HunyuanVideo 1.5, MiniMax H3 and Mochi 1. Check the licence first: Tencent's licence does not apply in the EU, UK or South Korea, and MiniMax H3's excludes the EU, UK, South Korea and the USA.

**Q: How much does one AI video clip cost?**

A: An 8-second clip costs from about $0.16 (Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite) to $3.20 (Veo 3.1 Standard) or $4.55 (Seedance 2.5 at 1080p) at list prices on 14 October 2026, and more at 4K. Most mid-range options land between $0.50 and $1.50.