Runway API credits to dollars: cost per second and per 100 clips

Runway's API credit is $0.01, so WAN3 is $0.05 to $0.20 per second and Seedance 2.5 is $0.20 to $0.68. Per-clip and 100-clip table, with the Sume comparison.

4 min readSume
All posts

Runway's developer pricing guide sets a credit at $0.01 (read 2026-10-07), so credits per second divide by 100 to give dollars per second. WAN3 at 5 to 20 credits is $0.05 to $0.20 per second, Seedance 2.5 at 20 to 68 is $0.20 to $0.68, Veo 3.1 at 20 (no audio) to 40 (audio) is $0.20 to $0.40, and Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite at 2 to 14 is $0.02 to $0.14. A 100-clip batch of 10 seconds multiplies each by 1,000.

The conversion

Credits x $0.01 = dollars. Seedance 2.5 low end: 20 x $0.01 = $0.20 per second, x 10 s = $2.00 a clip, x 100 = $200.00. High end: 68 x $0.01 = $0.68, x 10 = $6.80, x 100 = $680.00. The ranges come from resolution (and for Veo, audio) so a real quote needs the exact setting; the page summary I read gave the range, not the mapping.

Runway API video pricing at $0.01 per credit, 10-second clips (Runway page read 2026-10-07; Sume rows from Sume docs)
ModelCredits per secondDollars per second10 s clip100 clips
WAN35-20$0.05-$0.20$0.50-$2.00$50.00-$200.00
Seedance 2.520-68$0.20-$0.68$2.00-$6.80$200.00-$680.00
Veo 3.120-40$0.20-$0.40$2.00-$4.00$200.00-$400.00
Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite2-14$0.02-$0.14$0.20-$1.40$20.00-$140.00
Sume Wan 3.0 (list x 1.25)n/a$0.0625-$0.25$0.625-$2.50$62.50-$250.00

Images and extras

Runway's page lists image models too: Muse Image at 1 credit ($0.01) per image, Gen-4 Image Turbo at 2 credits ($0.02), and GPT Image 2.5 at 1 to 76 credits ($0.01 to $0.76) depending on quality and size. At those rates 100 images range from $1.00 (Muse Image) to $76.00 (GPT Image 2.5 at the top). It also lists image upscaling at 25 to 150 credits ($0.25 to $1.50) per image.

Where Sume overlaps

The only row the Sume docs price per second is Wan 3.0: $0.0625, $0.125 and $0.25 at 480p, 720p and 1080p, so $62.50 to $250.00 for 100 ten-second clips. Sume's Video Router also carries Seedance 2.5, Grok Imagine Video 1.5 and others, but the docs I read give no per-second price for them in text; read GET /v1/video-router/models for the live list x 1.25 figures, then do the same multiplication.

Sume's markup over a model's list is 25 percent. Runway's credit price is Runway's own, and I cannot see its cost basis, so I do not claim Runway's price is above or below list.

How to compare fairly

Line up four things before you trust any per-second figure: resolution, audio on or off, the duration limits of the model, and rounding (Sume bills Kling and some tools by ceil seconds). Then run your own 100-clip arithmetic. A cheap per-second price on a model that needs three attempts per usable clip is not cheap.

Budgeting with retries

Add a retry factor. If you need 1.5 generations per usable clip, a 100-clip batch of 10-second WAN3 at the middle of Runway's range (12.5 credits, $0.125 per second) is 150 x $1.25 = $187.50. The same factor on Sume Wan 3.0 at 720p ($0.125 per second, which is the same number by coincidence) is $187.50 too.

At the low end of the range, Runway's $0.05 per second gives 150 x $0.50 = $75.00, against $93.75 on Sume at 480p ($0.0625). Retry factors scale both sides equally, so they do not change the ordering; they only raise the stakes of a high per-second price.

Sources

Related posts

More in Comparisons

All Comparisons posts

Written by Sume