How Much Does AI Video Cost Per Minute? Real 2026 Numbers

A finished one-minute AI story video costs about 2,090 credits ($41 to $46) in Paintbrush as of October 2026, and the price is the same in every style: realistic, anime, cartoon, watercolor or any other. That example has 3 characters, 2 settings, twelve 5-second shots with on-camera dialogue in half of them, and about 900 characters of speech. About 87% of the cost is the video itself, priced per second of clip. Plan 1.5 to 2 times that budget for retakes.

Below: the minute line by line, the per-clip formula to price your own story, and the habits that cut the bill.

What does one minute of AI video cost in Paintbrush?

Every Paintbrush project, in every style, generates scene video with Seedance 2.5. There is no model or quality tier to choose, so this one column is the price for any style.

Credit packs as of October 2026: a one-time intro pack of $3 for 100 credits (first purchase only), $12 for 500, $22 for 1,000 and $99 for 5,000. Subscriptions with monthly credits also exist.

What are you actually paying for?

Assets: paid once, reused in every shot

A character costs 36 credits. That buys a full character sheet: front, side profile, back and a face close-up, with backgrounds removed. An extra outfit for a character, such as pajamas or a uniform, is another full turnaround and also costs 36 credits. A setting (a location) costs 8 credits and is generated as an empty, wide, eye-level view of the place. The captions Paintbrush writes for each character and setting are free.

These images are the references the video model sees in every shot, so they are the cheapest place to get things right. See how to change a character's outfit and how to keep backgrounds consistent.

Speech: almost free

Speech costs 0.008 credits per performed character, which is 8 credits per 1,000 characters. Audio tags like [whispers] and punctuation count as characters. A one-minute conversation is roughly 800 to 1,000 characters, so it costs under 10 credits. Editing a line later re-performs only the changed lines; unchanged lines are free.

Video: priced per second, and most of the bill

Every clip, in every style, is made with Seedance 2.5 at 30.3 credits per second. Clips run 4 to 30 seconds. Clip length is automatic: Paintbrush picks the shortest whole-second clip that holds the shot's slice of the chapter audio, then trims to it, so a 2-second reaction is billed as a 4-second clip. Cutting a chapter into shots is free.

Voice cleanup: 12.5 credits per clip nobody speaks in on camera

Video models generate their own audio and invent stray voices: crowd chatter, mumbling, sometimes whole lines nobody wrote. On clips nobody speaks in on camera (silent, or narration and offscreen lines only), Paintbrush removes the generated voices, keeps the ambience and sound effects, and lays the approved narration, if any, back exactly. This costs 12.5 credits per started 30 seconds of clip, and clips top out at 30 seconds, so in practice it is 12.5 credits per clip. Clips with on-camera dialogue keep the video model's own soundtrack and pay no cleanup. If cleanup fails, the clip gets the approved speech alone and the cleanup charge is refunded.

Lip sync: included in the video

For each shot, Seedance hears that slice of the chapter's recording and performs the on-camera lines itself, voice and mouth together. There is no separate lip-sync step and no lip-sync charge, in any style and for any number of speakers. Narration and offscreen lines move no mouth.

Keyframes for new angles: 8 credits

When a shot cuts to a new angle in the same space, Paintbrush first draws a still keyframe from the previous shot's real last frame, then animates it. That keeps posture, positions, clothes and light. The keyframe adds 8 credits. A continuous shot opens on the previous shot's last frame and needs no keyframe. Shots that show a phone screen, sign or page also get a keyframe so the text is legible.

What is the per-clip formula?

30.3 × seconds + (12.5 if nobody speaks on camera in the clip) + (8 if it needs a new-angle keyframe). The same formula applies in every style.

Worked examples, before any keyframe:

• 4-second shot with on-camera dialogue: 121.2 credits
• 5-second shot with on-camera dialogue: 151.5 credits
• 5-second silent or narrated shot: 151.5 + 12.5 = 164 credits
• 8-second shot with on-camera dialogue: 242.4 credits
• 8-second silent shot: 242.4 + 12.5 = 254.9 credits
• 30-second shot with on-camera dialogue: 909 credits

In the one-minute example, the video is 6 dialogue shots at 151.5 plus 6 silent or narrated shots at 164, which is 1,893 credits: 1,818 of video and 75 of cleanup. Add assets (124), keyframes (64) and speech (~7) to get the total in the table.

Does the style or the dialogue change the price?

The style does not. Every project runs on Seedance 2.5 at 30.3 credits per second, so the same story costs the same in anime, watercolor or photoreal. Realistic projects are included: Paintbrush's Seedance setup accepts photoreal character references.

Dialogue changes it a little, in your favour. A clip with on-camera lines keeps the video model's own soundtrack, because Seedance voiced those lines from the chapter's recording, so it pays no cleanup. A clip nobody speaks in on camera pays 12.5 credits to have its stray voices removed. So a 5-second dialogue shot is 151.5 credits and a 5-second silent or narrated shot is 164.

What really drives the bill is seconds of video and the number of clips: every second is 30.3 credits, no clip is shorter than 4 seconds, and every new angle adds a keyframe. How Seedance compares with Kling as standalone tools is covered in Kling vs Seedance for story video.

How do you make AI video cheaper?

1. Use fewer, purposeful shots. Every clip is at least 4 seconds of video (121.2 credits or more), clips without on-camera dialogue add 12.5 credits of cleanup, and every new angle adds an 8-credit keyframe, no matter how short the shot is. A 2-second reaction still pays for a 4-second clip. Give each shot a job: an entrance, a reaction, a turning line. Merge shots that only repeat what the previous one showed.
2. Choose narration or on-camera dialogue for the story, not the price. Narration does not save money: a narrated or silent 5-second shot is 164 credits and a 5-second on-camera dialogue shot is 151.5, because dialogue clips skip voice cleanup. Narrating the whole example minute would take video and cleanup from 1,893 to 1,968 credits (12 × 164). Use a narrator where the story wants one. See character voices and narration.
3. Approve assets before any video. Redoing a character costs 36 credits. Redoing it after the shots exist means regenerating every shot it appears in, at 151.5 to 164 credits per 5-second shot.
4. Lock the script before generating video. Changing a line costs almost nothing in speech (a 100-character line is 0.8 credits), but it changes the chapter audio, and the shots that cover that line are then out of date. A 5-second dialogue shot costs 151.5 credits to redo. Read the dialogue aloud and fix it first. Our guide to writing dialogue for AI video helps.
5. Know what is refunded. Failed generations are refunded automatically, including every charge tied to the job. Retakes of shots that succeeded cost again. Credits are charged before a job starts, and if you run out, work stops; nothing is charged without credits.

If you use the creation agent, it shows estimated credits for every item at each of its three approval stages: asset previews, chapter audio and scene video. Nothing is spent until you approve.

How do other AI video tools price video?

Most AI video generators sell either per-second (or per-clip) credits or a monthly subscription with a pool of credits, often with higher tiers for longer or higher-resolution clips. Check each tool's own pricing page, because rates change often.

Per clip, a single-clip generator is often cheaper than a Paintbrush shot, because you pay only for the video model. What you do not get: the same characters and places held across shots, a performed voice track, lip sync, and removal of invented voices. You do those yourself or pay for separate voice, lip-sync and editing tools.

A single-clip tool is the better value for b-roll, music videos, silent visual pieces and one-off shots. Paintbrush is built for multi-shot stories with recurring characters and spoken dialogue. Compare the cost of a finished minute including retakes, not the price of one clip. Our AI video generator comparison and Paintbrush vs Kling go tool by tool.

Two costs sit outside Paintbrush either way. Music is not generated, so add a score in an external editor. And budget for retakes: at 1.5 to 2 times, the example minute becomes roughly $60 to $90.

FAQ

How much does a 1-minute AI video cost?

In Paintbrush, as of October 2026, a one-minute story with 3 characters, 2 settings and twelve 5-second shots costs about 2,090 credits ($41 to $46) before retakes, the same in every style. The video itself is about 87% of that.

How much does a 10-minute AI video cost?

Assets are paid once; everything else scales with minutes. Using the same shot mix, each additional minute is about 1,964 credits (video 1,818, voice cleanup 75, keyframes 64, speech 7), in any style. Ten minutes with 3 characters and 6 settings (156 credits of assets) comes to about 19,800 credits, roughly $390 to $440. Add 1.5 to 2 times for retakes. See how to make an AI short film for planning a longer piece.

Are failed generations charged?

No. Failed generations are refunded automatically, along with every charge tied to that job. Retakes of shots that succeeded are charged again.

Is there a free trial?

The cheapest way to start is a one-time $3 intro pack of 100 credits, available only as your first purchase. That covers, for example, 2 characters (72), 2 settings (16) and about a minute of speech (~7). A video shot needs more: the cheapest, a 4-second shot with on-camera dialogue, is 121.2 credits, so plan on a $12 pack of 500 credits for your first shots. Getting started with your first video walks through a first project.

Does the voice or speech cost much?

No. Speech is 8 credits per 1,000 characters, so a minute of conversation (800 to 1,000 characters) is under 10 credits. Editing a line re-performs only that line, and unchanged lines are free. What costs more is the video those lines appear in, which is why it pays to fix the script first.