Price terms as published
Each line is the vendor’s own wording, split from the price capture checked on 2026-10-15. Nothing here is rounded, converted or re-worded — the full sentences stay in the review below. Lines that carry only a price continue the plan named on the line above, in the vendor’s own order.
| # | Plan / term | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $6.99–$300/mo | 2026-10-15 |
One-liner: All three turn a prompt into a clip; they differ in the money. Kling refills a little free every day, Runway meters every second across a marketplace of models, and Luma sells credits in block bulk. The “best model” question is secondary — the credit economy is what you actually pay.
Quick verdict
| Kling | Runway | Luma | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry paid tier | Standard $6.99 first month ($8.80 regular), 660 credits | Standard $15/mo ($12 annual), 625 credits | Plus $30/mo ($300 billed yearly), 10,000 credits |
| Free tier | 66 credits/day, refreshes daily (watermarked output) | 125 credits one-time, never expires | Free trial credits included (amount not published) |
| Top tier shown | Ultra $127.99 first month ($159.99 regular), 26,000 credits | Max 9,500 credits/mo (≈$95/mo, $76 annual — derived), 1-month rollover | Ultra $300/mo ($3,000 yearly), 150,000 credits |
| Flagship model | Kling 3.0 — up to 4K/60fps, 10s, multi-shot (up to 6 scenes), native audio | Gen-4.5 (12 credits/s in API pricing) plus a hosted model roster | Ray3.14 (Pi) in SDR/HDR, plus third-party models |
| Distinctive line | Cheapest entry + the only daily free refill | Marketplace: hosts Kling 3.0, Veo 3.1, Hailuo 3, Seedance 2.0, Nano Banana Pro | Bulk blocks 10K–150K; commercial use on all paid plans; 4K upscale |
| Reference | klingai.com | runwayml.com/pricing (canonical runway.com/pricing) | lumalabs.ai/pricing |
The fork that matters: what “free” actually means
The three free tiers are structurally different, and that difference drives who keeps using the service at $0.
- Kling gives 66 credits back every day — roughly a handful of short Standard-mode clips per day, watermarked. It is the only one of the three with a recurring free tier.
- Runway’s free account gets 125 credits once, and they never expire — which means they sit there for a trial, then the account is done. No refill.
- Luma publishes “all plans include free trial credits and commercial use” without a fixed number in the pricing data. Treat its free tier as a demo, not a lane.
If you will spend nothing but keep experimenting, Kling is the only one that keeps paying you credits.
Per-second economics (self-calculated from official rates, checked 2026-10-15)
Budget reference: 20 finished 5-second 720p clips = 100s of final video.
| Platform / model | Official rate | What 100s costs | What one entry tier buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kling Standard mode | ≈10–30 credits per 5s clip (third-party sources disagree; range shown) | ≈200–600 credits | 660 credits → 22–66 clips/mo |
| Runway Gen-4.5 (API pricing) | 12 credits/s | ≈1,200 credits | 625 credits ≈ 52s (official conversion); two Standard months, or one Max (9,500) |
| Luma Ray2 720p | 160 credits / 5s | 3,200 credits | 10,000 credits ≈ 62 clips (Ray2 Flash: ≈181) |
| Luma Ray3.14 SDR 720p | 100 credits / 5s | 2,000 credits | 10,000 credits ≈ 100 clips |
These are floors, not predictions: iteration (re-rolls, reference shots, upscaling) multiplies real spend. The point is the shape: Luma’s entry tier out-buys Runway’s entry tier by ~16× in raw 5s clips; Runway’s Pro/Max out-buy Luma’s Plus on long-form; Kling’s daily refill is the only free lane that never empties.
The 2026 shift: platforms, not models
The comparison no longer hinges on “whose model is better” — all three now host other companies’ models:
- Runway’s API pricing lists Kling 3.0, Hailuo 3, Veo 3.1, Seedance 2.0 and Nano Banana Pro alongside its own Gen-4.5; the web UI currently runs an “Unlimited Wan 3.0” tool-mode promotion (until Oct 18).
- Luma’s paid plans explicitly include “Luma and third-party image and video models” (Seedance 2.0 up to 4K, Minimax H3 Max).
- Kling’s consumer app is a single-model platform (Kuaishou’s own line).
Choosing between these three is mostly choosing a credit economy (refill vs one-time vs block), a queue, and an agent toolset — the model roster chases the marketplace. If you specifically want Ray3 HDR, you go to Luma; if you want Gen-4.5 at 12 credits/s, Runway; if you want daily free credits and multi-shot narratives, Kling.
When to pick which
Pick Kling if:
- You generate daily but at hobby volume, and the daily 66-credit refill keeps you at $0 most of the time
- You want the lowest paid entry in AI video (from $6.99 first month)
- Your format is narrative multi-shot (up to 6 connected scenes in one pass) with native audio
Pick Runway if:
- You want one subscription covering many models (video + image + audio: Gen-4.5, Veo 3.1, Nano Banana Pro, Hailuo)
- You work in bursts: the Max tier rolls up to one month of unused credits forward
- You want a single credit pool for an agent-driven pipeline (Runway MCP, parallel generations)
Pick Luma if:
- You need bulk: 10,000 / 40,000 / 150,000-credit blocks, commercial use on every paid tier
- You work in HDR pipelines (Ray3.14 HDR costs 4× the SDR rate — budget for that explicitly)
- Team collaboration matters (guest edit access on Plus and up)
What none of them does (yet)
All three stop at the first render. Color grade, sound design, subtitles, editing and distribution are still yours. Luma’s audio for Reframe is “coming soon” per its own docs; the free tiers are demos, not production lanes — and commercial rights live on the paid side of every one of the three.
Sources
- Runway: official pricing page (runwayml.com/pricing, canonical runway.com/pricing) and help-center credit FAQ, fetched 2026-10-15: Free 125 one-time credits; Standard $15/mo ($12 annual) 625 credits = 52s of Gen-4.5 (official conversion); Pro $35/mo ($28 annual) 2,250 credits; Max 9,500 credits with 1-month rollover — Max tier price ($95/mo, $76 annual) derived from the page’s own “Save $228/year” annual deltas; UI renders prices client-side. API per-second rates from docs.dev.runwayml.com pricing guide (gen4.5 = 12 credits/s; UI metering can differ).
- Luma: official pricing page (lumalabs.ai/pricing, JSON-LD offers) and learning-hub credit-system page, fetched 2026-10-15: Plus $30/mo ($300 yearly) 10,000 credits; Pro $90/mo ($900) 40,000; Ultra $300/mo ($3,000) 150,000; Ray2 720p = 160 credits/5s, Ray2 Flash = 55, Ray3.14 SDR 720p = 100 credits/5s (HDR = 4× SDR).
- Kling: the consumer pricing page is JS-rendered with no server-side numbers; plan figures (66 free credits/day; $6.99/$25.99/$64.99/$127.99 first-month entry prices at $8.80/$32.56/$80.96/$159.99 regular; 660/3,000/8,000/26,000 credits) were cross-verified across three 2026 third-party sources (Luma news “Kling Pricing”, HeyGen’s Kling pricing guide, fluxnote’s 2026 Kling pricing guide) — all three agree on plan prices; the 5-second Standard-mode clip cost differs between sources (10 vs 20–30 credits), so this page shows a range.
- This page is official-terms only: no accounts, no generations. All figures are as published 2026-10-15; self-calculated rows are marked and are floors, not forecasts.