Kling vs Runway: what you pay per clip

Three ways to buy, one 5 s clip

The "usable" column divides the attempt price by a 50% keeper rate. That is an editable assumption, not a measured rate for either company's models.

Kling dollar figures are derived from Kling's unit table; app rows are derived from credit counts and plan prices. Runway's table lists Gen-4 Turbo as an image-to-video model with a 10 s maximum; the Gen-4.5 pricing page does not list a maximum length.

Runway app: the plan sets the price

Runway app credit costs are fixed per generation, so the dollar price depends on which plan buys the credits. Monthly credit value from the plan page: Standard Runway Standard: $15.00/month, 625 credits (checked Nov 5, 2026), Pro Runway Pro: $35.00/month, 2,250 credits (checked Nov 5, 2026), Max Runway Max: $95.00/month, 9,500 credits (checked Nov 5, 2026). A 5 s Gen-4.5 clip is 60 credits. A 5 s Kling 4.0 clip at 1080p is 118 credits.

That table converts the 118 credits at each plan's monthly credit value. At the Max plan, a 5 s Kling 4.0 1080p clip costs about the same as the Kling API at 1080p; on Standard it costs about 2.4 times as much. The assumption is that you use every credit in the month: unused credits are lost on most plans, though Max rolls unused credits over for one month and bought extra credits never expire. See credits explained and the Runway pricing guide.

What each route requires

• Kling API: prepaid packs. Flagship (4.0 and 4.0 Flash) packs start at $500, general packs for 3.0 and others at $700, valid 180 days, no rollover. A $9 first-purchase trial exists. Flagship packs list 20 concurrent tasks.
• Runway API: credits at $0.01 each in the developer portal. Aleph 2.0 (video editing) is $0.28/s with a 56-credit minimum per generation.
• Runway app: subscription, with 5, 15 or 20 parallel generations depending on plan, and a Free plan with a one-time 125 credits and a selection of models only.
• Kling app plans: plans are listed on Kling's membership page (see Kling pricing), but credits per video are not published, so this page does not convert them to a clip price.

Resolution, audio and commercial terms

Audio: Kling 3.0 charges 50% more with audio. Kling 4.0 audio is native in Runway's docs. Runway does not state audio on its Gen-4.5 API price line.

Terms: paid Runway plans list "No watermarks"; the commercial-use wording was not extracted from the pricing page. Kling's terms are not stated on its pricing page. Read both before client work: commercial use rules.

Promos have end dates: Runway's Kling 4.0 discount ends 2026-11-30, and OpenArt runs a 50% Kling 4.0 offer for Wonder and Pro through 2026-11-20. Check price history before budgeting a project on a promo.

Keeper rate break-even

Runway Gen-4.5 on the API is about the same per second as Kling 3.0 with audio, and cheaper than Kling 4.0. Kling 4.0 at 720p costs about 1.3 times Gen-4.5. So Kling 4.0 only wins per usable clip if you keep about 1.3 times as many of its generations. Nothing here says which model that holds for.