A 30-second AI brand video costs $500 to $3,000 from a freelance creator, about $5,000 and up from a professional AI studio, and under $20 in raw model fees if you generate it yourself. All three numbers are true at once. The gap between them - and why the cheap end usually costs more than it looks - is the whole story of AI video pricing in 2026.
This rate card was compiled on July 3, 2026 from published model API rates, published agency pricing, and documented campaign budgets. Sources are linked throughout. Most studios listed on StudioList quote per-project, so treat every range here as a planning number, not a quote.
Why every cost article contradicts the next one
Search "AI video production cost" and you will find numbers from $30 per minute to $2,000 per minute, often on the same results page. Nobody is lying. They are measuring different layers:
- Raw model fees - what the AI model charges per second of generated footage. Pennies.
- Creator time - concepting, prompting, curating hundreds of takes, editing, sound design. This is where the real cost lives.
- Production overhead - usage rights, likeness clearances, revision rounds, disclosure compliance. Invisible until the invoice.
Any article quoting one layer as "the cost of AI video" is technically right and practically useless. Here is all three at once.
The rate card (July 2026)
| Route | Typical range | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Raw model fees (DIY) | $0.07 - $0.40 per second of output | Generation only. No iteration, edit, sound, or rights |
| DIY all-in tool stack | $170 - $685 per month | Creator-reported subscription and credit cost before one polished video ships |
| Freelance AI creator | $500 - $3,000 per video | Concept, generation, edit. Rights and revisions vary by contract |
| AI studio or agency | From about $5,000 per 30-second spot | Direction, multi-model pipeline, revisions, licensing, delivery |
| Traditional production (reference) | $250,000 - $500,000 for a national spot | Crew, locations, post. The benchmark AI work gets measured against |
The agency floor tracks published rates like Lemonlight's, where branded video work starts around $5,000. The traditional benchmark comes from the most-cited AI cost story of the past year: prediction market Kalshi aired a spot during the 2025 NBA Finals that reportedly cost about $2,000 to produce, against the $250,000 to $500,000 a comparable traditional commercial runs. That comparison, reported by NPR in June 2025, is the reason your CFO is asking about AI video.
What raw generation actually costs
Per-second API pricing, as published in July 2026:
| Model | Published rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kling | From about $0.07 per second | Kling 3.0 Turbo (June 17, 2026) runs about 0.8 yuan per second at 720p with audio and lip-sync bundled |
| Seedance (fast tier) | About $0.09 per second | Seedance 2.5 (announced June 23, 2026) adds native 30-second 4K generation |
| Veo 3.1 | About $0.10 - $0.40 per second | Veo 3.1 Lite (March 31, 2026) cut developer cost roughly in half |
So a 30-second clip costs $2 to $12 to generate. Once. The number that matters is the iteration ratio: a polished spot sits on top of dozens to hundreds of discarded generations. Creators who publish their real numbers on r/aivideo report ecosystem costs of $170 to $685 per month across model subscriptions, upscalers, and editing tools before a single client-ready video ships. Multiply the raw per-second price by 30x to 100x and you get an honest DIY figure.
What moves a studio quote up or down
Five factors explain most of the spread inside studio pricing:
- Usage rights. A video for organic social costs less than the same video licensed for paid media across markets. Ask what the quote licenses.
- Human likeness. Real faces mean consent and compensation. In June 2026, fashion models accused retailer Rainbow Shops of using AI-generated versions of real models without either - exactly the kind of dispute a studio's clearance process exists to prevent.
- Revision economics. In traditional video a revision is an edit. In AI video a revision can mean regenerating shots, which costs compute and curation time. Good studios define what a revision round includes up front.
- Disclosure compliance. New York's synthetic performer disclosure law took effect June 9, 2026. Ads featuring AI-generated human likenesses that reach New York audiences need conspicuous disclosure, with fines of $1,000 to $5,000 per violation. Compliance review is now part of the production job.
- Model stack. Studios running open-weight models on their own hardware price differently from studios paying enterprise API rates. Neither is wrong - see our model comparison for what each stack is good at.
How much do AI videos cost to make?
The one-paragraph answer, for the question people actually type: generating AI footage costs $0.07 to $0.40 per second in model fees. Producing a finished AI video costs $500 to $3,000 from a freelancer and $5,000 and up from a studio, because the real cost is human judgment and iteration, not compute. A national-quality spot has been documented as low as roughly $2,000 in hard costs - made by a team that knew exactly what it was doing.
How much should you charge for AI video work?
If you are on the creator side of the market: anchor to the deliverable, not your compute bill. The going freelance range for a finished 60 to 120 second video is $1,000 to $3,000, and a 30-second edit of existing generations sits below that. Charge for iteration explicitly - the clients worth keeping understand that take 47 is what they are paying for. Get listed if you want buyers finding you instead of the other way around.
Is making AI videos profitable?
At studio rates, yes, when iteration is disciplined. The margin between a $5,000 deliverable and $50 of model fees is real, but it gets consumed by curation time, revisions, and client management. The market signal points the same direction: Runway raised $315M at a $5.3B valuation in June 2026, and the number of working AI studios keeps growing. The economics fail in exactly one place: unlimited-revision contracts. Regeneration is never free.
Get an actual quote
Ranges plan budgets; quotes come from studios. Browse vetted AI video studios, see who wins the festivals, or get matched free with studios that fit your budget and deliverable. And before you sign anything, read the 10 questions to ask before hiring an AI video studio.