The Cheapest Way to Make 5-Second AI Videos of Your Own Character

What does one 5-second clip cost on each route?

Five routes, priced on 2 November 2026. A pay-per-second API is cheapest per generation: Pika's developer pricing bills reference-to-video at $0.03 per output second at 480p, $0.06 at 768p and $0.075 at 1080p, plus the reference seconds you upload — about $0.15 for a 5-second 480p clip, $0.375 at 1080p (dev.pika.art). Pika's consumer plans are the next rung: $10 a month ($8 billed annually) for 900 credits, with a 5-second 720p generation priced at 33 to 122 credits depending on the model picked, roughly $0.37 to $1.36 a clip (pika.art/pricing).

Runway publishes its rate outright: "Gen-4.5 uses 12 credits per second of generated video", so 60 credits for 5 seconds. Standard is $15 a month list ($12 billed annually) for 625 credits, about $1.44 a clip; its faster tier is roughly half that (runway.com/pricing). Luma's Dream Machine publishes no per-generation cost — Plus is $30 a month for 10,000 credits and the page says cost "varies based on what you're creating" (lumalabs.ai/dream-machine/pricing). Renting hardware for an open-weight model is billed by the hour: an RTX 4090 with 24 GB of VRAM is listed at $0.89 an hour on demand (runpod.io/pricing).

How much does a 5-second AI video cost on OFMAI?

7 credits at 480p, 13 at 720p, 25 at 1080p. Longer clips scale from there — 13 credits for 10 seconds at 480p, 19 for 15 — and a failed generation is refunded automatically, so you never pay for a clip you cannot use.

In dollars it depends only on the plan the credits come from: about $2.33 a clip on Starter ($9.99 for 30 credits), $1.75 on Pro ($24.99 for 100), $1.17 on Business ($49.99 for 300), $1.05 on Agency ($149.99 for 1000). Annual billing saves 25%, taking a Starter clip to $1.75. Subscription credits renew monthly; top-up credits never expire.

Why is the cheapest price per clip rarely the cheapest usable clip?

Because it assumes the first clip is the one you keep. A text prompt describes a type of person, not a specific one, so each generation returns someone slightly different and you reroll until one is close enough — billed at the full rate every time. Three tries at $0.15 cost more than one clip at $0.40, and you still have no guarantee for the next scene.

The way out is to start from an image of the person instead of describing them. On OFMAI the character is a stored asset: built once from 3 of your own reference photos — a portrait, a front view and a back view, with no training and ready in minutes — or designed from a text description, then reused in every generation. A photo of it is 2 credits, an image edit 2, and the video step animates the still you approved. End to end, a first clip is 12 + 2 + 7 = 21 credits, about $6.99 on Starter; every clip after that is 7 credits plus its still, because the character is not rebuilt.

Is there a free way to make 5-second AI videos?

Once or twice. Runway's Free plan includes "125 one-time credits to explore Runway's AI tools", which at its published 12 credits per second is about 10 seconds of generation — two 5-second clips. Pika's Free plan is $0 with 0 monthly credits: it unlocks the models and removes the watermark, but you buy credit packs to generate and it carries no commercial licence (both read 2 November 2026). A free tier tests whether a tool can animate your reference at all; neither guarantees the same character across the clips you get. OFMAI has no free tier — plans start at $9.99 a month.

Is an open-weight model on your own GPU cheaper?

Per clip, eventually, yes: once the hardware is paid for, the marginal cost is electricity. Rented hardware makes the trade-off visible — an RTX 4090 with 24 GB of VRAM is $0.89 an hour on demand (runpod.io/pricing, read 2 November 2026) — so the question is how many 5-second clips you finish in an hour, discards included, and how many hours go into the stack itself. If you produce hundreds of clips a week and enjoy maintaining a node graph, local is the cheapest route and OFMAI is not the answer: it is a hosted web app, not a downloadable model.

When is OFMAI not the cheapest choice?

When you do not need the same person twice. For a handful of one-off clips, an establishing shot or a quick test, a pay-per-second API at around $0.15 for 5 seconds at 480p — or a free deposit — is cheaper than any subscription.

Check the arithmetic for 1080p at volume too: a 5-second 1080p clip is 25 credits — about $8.32 on Starter, $3.75 on Agency — against roughly $0.375 on a pay-per-second API (dev.pika.art, read 2 November 2026). OFMAI is also not a scheduler or publishing hub: you generate and export, then post where you already publish.

How do you keep the cost of a 5-second clip down?

Draft at 480p — 5 seconds is 7 credits there against 25 at 1080p — and spend the 25 only on the take you keep. Fix the still before animating it: an image edit is 2 credits, far less than re-rendering a clip over one detail. And check whether credits survive the month: Runway says plan credits on Standard and Pro "refresh each billing period and do not roll over", Luma that unused credits "expire at the end of the applicable billing cycle" (both read 2 November 2026), so a plan sized for your best month overcharges you in the others. On OFMAI purchased top-up credits never expire, so cover a burst with a top-up instead.

One 5-second clip, priced on 2 November 2026

• Pay-per-second video API - about $0.15 at 480p, $0.375 at 1080p, plus the reference seconds you upload; only successful runs charged. No stored character (dev.pika.art).
• Pika consumer plans - 33 to 122 credits for a 5-second 720p generation depending on the model picked, on a $10/month plan with 900 credits: roughly $0.37 to $1.36 a clip (pika.art/pricing).
• Runway - 60 credits for 5 seconds at its published 12 credits per second, on a $15/month plan with 625 credits: about $1.44 a clip, roughly half that on its faster tier (runway.com/pricing).
• Luma Dream Machine - no per-generation cost published; credits sold from $30/month for 10,000 and expiring each billing cycle (lumalabs.ai/dream-machine/pricing).
• Rented GPU, open-weight model - $0.89 an hour for an RTX 4090 with 24 GB of VRAM, so cost per clip depends on how many you finish per hour (runpod.io/pricing).
• OFMAI - 7 credits at 480p, 13 at 720p, 25 at 1080p, from $1.05 to $2.33 a clip by plan. The clip animates a character you built once, so the same look and body carry across clips.