Sora alternatives after the API shutdown: Veo, Runway, Luma, Pika and more by price

Updated October 29, 2026. Researched and drafted with AI help; every figure is checked against the linked source.

OpenAI closed the Sora app on April 26, 2026 and discontinued the Sora API on September 24, 2026. If you built a product or a workflow on Sora, you now need another video model. This guide compares the paid video APIs we track on one thing they all share: the official price per second of generated video.

All prices below come from each provider’s own pricing page, as listed on our video prices page (last checked October 19, 2026). Quality, clip length limits and features differ a lot between these models, so treat price as the first filter, not the final answer.

What an 8-second clip costs at 720p

Eight seconds is a common clip length, so here is the price of one 8-second 720p clip, and of 100 of them (about 13 minutes of footage), sorted from cheapest.

Model	Provider	Per second (720p)	One 8 s clip	100 clips
Grok Imagine Video 1.5 Lite	xAI	$0.03	$0.24	$24
Pika 2.5 (image-to-video)	Pika	$0.04	$0.32	$32
Veo 3.1 Lite	Google	$0.05	$0.40	$40
Runway Gen-4 Turbo	Runway	$0.05	$0.40	$40
Seedance 2.0 Mini	ByteDance	$0.076	$0.61	$61
MiniMax H3 (768p)	MiniMax	$0.08	$0.64	$64
Veo 3.1 Fast	Google	$0.10	$0.80	$80
Gemini Omni Flash (approx.)	Google	about $0.10	about $0.80	about $80
Runway Gen-4.5	Runway	$0.12	$0.96	$96
Seedance 2.0 Fast	ByteDance	$0.12	$0.96	$96
Grok Imagine Video 1.5	xAI	$0.14	$1.12	$112
Seedance 2.0	ByteDance	$0.152	$1.22	$122
FLUX 3 Video (HD)	Black Forest Labs	$0.17	$1.36	$136
Seedance 2.5	ByteDance	$0.231	$1.85	$185
Veo 3.1	Google	$0.40	$3.20	$320

Update, October 29, 2026: Google shut down the Veo 3.1 preview models (Veo 3.1, Fast and Lite) in the Gemini API on October 22, 2026 and recommends Gemini Omni Flash instead. The Veo 3.1 rows show the last price the Gemini API listed. Google points to its Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Vertex AI) for generally available Veo models.

Notes on the table:

Runway lists one per-second price per model with no resolution split, so the Runway rows show that price.
MiniMax H3 is priced at 768p, the closest tier to 720p.
Gemini Omni Flash is billed per token ($17.50 per 1M video output tokens); about $0.10 per second at 720p is our approximation, not a list price.
Pika 2.5’s API price is for image-to-video and requires a $10/month API membership on top.
Seedance is billed in tokens; the per-second figures come from BytePlus’s own 5-second examples without input video.
Luma is not in the table because it prices per clip, not per second (see below).

The spread is large: the most expensive row (Veo 3.1) costs about 13 times the cheapest (Grok Imagine Video 1.5 Lite) for the same 8 seconds of 720p.

At 1080p the order changes

Not every model has a 1080p price, and some get much more expensive at full HD. For an 8-second 1080p clip:

Model	Per second (1080p)	One 8 s clip
Pika 2.5	$0.06	$0.48
Veo 3.1 Lite	$0.08	$0.64
Veo 3.1 Fast	$0.12	$0.96
Grok Imagine Video 1.5 Lite	$0.14	$1.12
Grok Imagine Video 1.5	$0.25	$2.00
FLUX 3 Video (FHD)	$0.29	$2.32
Seedance 2.0	$0.374	$2.99
Veo 3.1	$0.40	$3.20
Seedance 2.5	$0.569	$4.55

Two things stand out. Grok Imagine Video 1.5 Lite is the cheapest model at 720p but almost five times more per second at 1080p ($0.03 vs $0.14). And Veo 3.1 costs the same $0.40 per second at 720p and 1080p, so if you use full Veo 3.1 at all, there is no saving in dropping to 720p.

The four names people ask about

Google Veo 3.1 (shut down in the Gemini API)

Google’s Veo docs say the Veo 3.1 preview models were shut down in the Gemini API on October 22, 2026, and recommend migrating to Gemini Omni Flash (gemini-omni-1.1-flash) or to the generally available models on Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Until then, Veo came in three price levels in the Gemini API, and Google’s price list stated they generate video with audio:

Veo 3.1: $0.40 per second at 720p or 1080p, $0.60 at 4K.
Veo 3.1 Fast: $0.10 at 720p, $0.12 at 1080p, $0.30 at 4K.
Veo 3.1 Lite: $0.05 at 720p, $0.08 at 1080p, no 4K.

Fast cost a quarter of full Veo 3.1 at 720p and less than a third at 1080p. In the Gemini API, the replacement is now Gemini Omni Flash at about $0.10 per second of 720p video.

Runway

Runway’s API has three video models we track: Gen-4 Turbo at $0.05 per second, Gen-4.5 at $0.12 per second, and Aleph 2 at $0.28 per second (with a 56-credit minimum per generation).

Runway also sells monthly plans. By Runway’s own figures, Standard ($15) includes 625 credits, about 52 seconds of Gen-4.5, which works out to roughly $0.29 per second. Pro ($35) includes 2,250 credits, about 187 seconds of Gen-4.5, or roughly $0.19 per second. Both are more per second than the $0.12 API price, so if you only need Gen-4.5 output and can use an API, pay-as-you-go is cheaper. The plans make sense if you want Runway’s editor and tools, not just the model.

Luma Ray3.2

Luma prices per clip rather than per second. At 720p a 5-second video costs $0.30 and a 10-second one $0.90. A 5-second clip is $0.15 at 540p and $1.20 at 1080p, and HDR doubles the price.

Per second that is $0.06 for a 5-second 720p clip, but $0.09 for a 10-second one, so with Luma two short clips cost less than one long one. At 1080p (about $0.24 per second for 5 seconds) Luma is in the same range as Grok Imagine Video 1.5.

Pika 2.5

Pika’s API is the cheapest of the four: $0.04 per second at 720p and $0.06 at 1080p for image-to-video. The catch is the $10 per month API membership you need first. At 100 clips of 8 seconds a month at 1080p ($48), the membership still leaves Pika cheaper in total ($58) than Veo 3.1 Lite at 1080p ($64), but at small volumes the fixed fee dominates.

Other options worth a look

ByteDance Seedance (via BytePlus ModelArk) has the widest range of any provider we track, from Seedance 2.0 Mini at $0.036 per second (480p) or $0.076 (720p) up to Seedance 2.5 at $0.569 (1080p) and Seedance 2.0 at $0.778 (4K).
MiniMax H3 costs $0.08 per second at 768p and $0.13 at 2K.
xAI Grok Imagine Video 1.5 is $0.08 per second at 480p, $0.14 at 720p and $0.25 at 1080p; the Lite version is the cheapest 720p option we track.
FLUX 3 Video from Black Forest Labs costs $0.17 per second at HD, $0.29 at FHD and $0.80 at UHD, with a draft mode at $0.06 per second.

Some of these models (Seedance 2.0 and 2.5, Veo 3.1 and 3.1 Fast, MiniMax H3, Runway Gen-4.5) are also sold through fal, Replicate, OpenRouter and Higgsfield, sometimes at a different price than the maker’s own API. The video prices page compares those platform prices.

How to choose

Start from resolution. If you need 1080p, compare the second table, not the first: the cheapest 720p option, Grok Imagine Video 1.5 Lite, loses its edge at full HD.
Check whether you need audio. Google lists Veo 3.1 prices as video with audio. For other models, check the provider’s docs before assuming sound is included.
Do a short test on two or three models. At $0.24 to $3.20 per 8-second clip, ten test clips on a candidate cost between about $2.40 and $32, and tell you more than any price list.
Count fixed fees. Pika’s $10 membership and Runway’s plans change the math at low volumes.
Watch for changes. Sora showed that a model can disappear entirely. Our prices page and news feed track changes from official sources.

For image models and a broader look at media pricing, see AI image and video generation prices. For chat models, the API price table and cost calculator cover text tokens.