AI video model pricing for ads (October 2026): cost per second and per 15-second ad

Fifteen seconds of AI video for an ad costs anywhere from about 81 to 2,620 Orisu credits in October 2026, or roughly $0.79 to $25.68 at the Pro plan rate. The spread is the story: the same 15-second hook costs 32 times more on Seedance 2.5 at 1080p than on Grok Imagine Video 1.5 Lite. Picking the model per stage of the ad matters more than any discount.

We built this index because the question we get most from ad teams is not "which model is best" but "what will this cost me per ad". Vendor pricing pages answer in credits, tokens, compute units or minutes rounded up, which makes them hard to compare. Here everything is in one unit: credits per second and per 15 seconds, read from the same catalog that bills every run on Orisu.

How we built the index

Every number below comes from Orisu's model catalog on October 6, 2026, the same pricing code that produces the estimate you see on a node before you run it. The steps:

1. For each model we took the setting an ad team would most likely use: 720p where the model offers it, 9:16-ready, and native audio on where the model makes it.
2. We computed the charged credits per second, then the credits for 15 seconds of footage, rounded up to a whole credit the way billing does.
3. We converted credits to dollars at the Pro plan rate: $49 for 5,000 credits, so $0.0098 per credit. On Starter ($19 for 1,000 credits) multiply the credits by $0.019 instead. Plans are on the pricing page.

Our credit prices are built on each provider's published API list price plus our markup, so calling a model's API directly costs less per second. What you skip with a hosted catalog is the engineering, the separate accounts, and stitching the steps together.

The index counts one generation per clip. It does not count retries, editing, or your time. We cover what retries do to the real number further down.

The index: cost per second and per 15-second ad

"Not listed" means our catalog has no audio setting for that model, so plan on adding a voice track. Where the longest clip is under 15 seconds, the 15-second figure assumes two generations cut together. Veo 3.1, for example, renders 4, 6 or 8 seconds per clip, so a 15-second spot is two shots.

Source: Orisu model catalog, October 6, 2026. You're welcome to reuse the table with a link to this page.

What the numbers say

Audio is often the biggest single line item. Veo 3.1 doubles in price when it generates sound (30 to 60 credits a second). Kling 3.0 Standard goes from 12.6 to 18.9. If your ad uses a voiceover recorded or generated separately, rendering the footage silent and adding the voice on its own track is the cheaper path. A 15-second ElevenLabs v4 voiceover of about 40 words costs around 3 credits on Orisu, which is close to free next to the video.

Resolution multiplies, it doesn't add. Seedance 2.5 at 1080p costs about 2.5 times its 720p rate, and 480p costs about half. For judging a hook or an angle, 720p is plenty. Save 1080p for the version you scale spend on.

Long single takes cost what they cost. Seedance 2.5 is the only model here that renders a full 30-second ad in one pass with audio. That removes the seams where AI ads usually give themselves away, and it costs 2,115 credits (about $20.73 on Pro) at 720p. We wrote up when that is worth it in what native 30-second AI video changes for ad makers.

The middle of the table is crowded. Kling 3.0 Standard, Kling O3, Wan 3.0, Gemini Omni Flash and LTX 2.5 all sit between about 200 and 290 credits per 15 seconds with audio. In that band, choose on motion quality and how well the model holds your product, not on price.

What does a talking-actor UGC ad add?

A UGC-style ad with a person speaking to camera usually has two extra steps: a voice track and lip-sync. Here is what the lip-sync step costs per 15 seconds of output on the same catalog.

So a 15-second talking-actor clip built from a still portrait, a generated voice and OmniHuman 1.5 lands around 363 credits, about $3.56 on Pro, before any b-roll. Dubbing that finished ad into another language with ElevenLabs Dubbing adds about 19 credits per language for 15 seconds. We compare these numbers with Arcads, Creatify and Higgsfield in how much an AI UGC ad actually costs.

Cost per generation is not cost per usable ad

The index prices one take. Real ads take several. If a model needs three tries to give you a clip with clean hands and a readable label, your cost per usable 15 seconds is three times the table:

Three takes is an example, not a measured rate. Count your own: log every generation for a week and divide by the clips that shipped. That ratio is the number that should pick your model, and it changes by product category, shot type and how specific your prompts are.

The practical pattern we recommend:

1. Test hooks and angles on a cheap model at 480p or 720p, often silent.
2. Lock the script, the shot order and the winning hook.
3. Render the winner once on the model that best holds your product, with audio if you need it.

Because Orisu only re-runs the steps whose inputs changed, step 3 doesn't re-bill the script or the voice. The per-node estimate also shows the cost before anything runs, and when you leave Seedance 2.5's duration on auto the run reserves credits for the longest possible clip and settles to the length it actually delivered.

How do images compare?

For a static ad, the costs are small next to video. On the same catalog, one 2K image costs about 21 credits on Nano Banana Pro, 16 on GPT Image 2 (medium quality) and Nano Banana 2, 6 on Seedream 4.5 and 3 on FLUX.2 Pro. A full set of 10 statics on Nano Banana Pro is around 210 credits, less than one 15-second Kling clip with audio. If you want prompts to start from, the Seedance 2.5 and Nano Banana Pro prompt hubs are a good place.

Limits of this index

• It reflects list settings on one date. Providers change prices, and so do we. The estimate on the node in the app is the number that bills.
• It measures cost, not quality. A cheap model that needs eight takes costs more than an expensive one that lands in two. For which model wins which job, see which AI video model to use when.
• Durations are rounded to the clip lengths each model allows, and two-clip ads need an edit.
• Dollar figures use the Pro plan rate. Free-tier, Starter and Enterprise rates differ.

We will refresh this page when the catalog moves. If you want to run the numbers on your own mix, the cost estimator on the pricing page does the same math for images and video seconds.