How much does an AI-made video cost versus a traditional one?

Every number for traditional video on the internet is published by a company that sells video. That includes the ones on this page. So I show who said what, I show the spread instead of a made-up average, and the AI side comes from a price list dated 4 November 2026. The sums at the end use made-up inputs that you should replace with your own.

This page is a price page. If you want a comparison of one editor against one tool, read AI video generator versus hiring a video editor, which works through hourly rates. If you want to know where the footage should come from, read AI video versus stock footage versus filming yourself.

The short answer: from a few dollars to tens of thousands, and the sticker price is the smaller part

A single AI clip can cost cents. A premium animated film can cost tens of thousands. In between sit freelancers, small studios, subscriptions and hybrids. What usually decides the real cost is not the sticker price. It is how many tries you need, how many rounds of changes you ask for, and how many hours you spend on it yourself.

What traditional promo videos cost, and who published each price

The table uses three studio and video service pages (two more are covered in the date warning below). Treat each range as "what this seller says it charges", not as the market.

Video type	Range stated	Published by (what they sell)
Simple motion graphics	$1,000 to $5,000	Shootsta, a video subscription seller
Custom 2D animation	$2,500 to $10,000	Video Explainers, which sells AI and custom video
Custom 2D animation	$5,000 to $15,000	Shootsta
Custom 3D animation	$5,000 to $25,000	Video Explainers
Premium character animation	$15,000 to $40,000 and up	Shootsta
Live action explainer	$5,000 to $20,000	Shootsta
Custom animated explainer, UK	From GBP 975	Lost Marble Media, a UK animation studio
AI avatar video (a presenter that is generated)	$497 for a single video, $300 to $375 each on a plan	Video Explainers
Monthly video subscription	From $1,000 a month (Shootsta) or $1,499 a month (Video Explainers)	Each seller

Look at the gaps. The same kind of video, custom 2D, is $2,500 to $10,000 on one page and $5,000 to $15,000 on another. Lost Marble also says agencies quote GBP 3,000 to 10,000 or more for 60 seconds, but it gives no source for that. Video Explainers' page contradicts itself between its table and its FAQ, and the $99 headline on it is for a voiceover language add-on, not a video, so it is not used here.

Be careful with dates. Two of the seven pages reviewed for this topic carry a 2026 label that does not match their own dates. One studio blog shows dates back to 2018 and another was first written in 2023 and updated in December 2025. Neither is used as a 2026 price. One of them says it collected quotes that ran from $950 to $250,000, which, if it is still true, shows how wide the spread really is. That is a reason to get your own quotes, not a number to plan around.

The full list of the sellers' hidden costs is in the next sections. If your job is a TV spot, cheap TV commercials for small business is the better page.

What AI-made video costs: credits, subscriptions and retries

AI video tools usually sell a monthly plan that comes with credits. A credit is the unit a site spends each time you generate something. Different models cost different numbers of credits per second. I use Runway as a price example only. Runway sells AI video tools and hosts several video models. This is not a recommendation, and other tools differ. For the plans of another product, see Higgsfield pricing.

From Runway's pricing page as of 4 November 2026:

• Plans: Free has 125 one-time credits. Standard is $15 a month ($12 if billed yearly) for 625 credits. Pro is $35 ($28) for 2,250. Max is $95 ($76) for 9,500.
• Credits per second of video: Gen-4.5 (Runway's own model) uses 12 credits per second. Kling 4.0 at 1080p lists 118 credits for 5 seconds (23.6 a second), with a 25% discount shown until 30 November 2026 (89 credits for 5 seconds), so the table below uses the list rate. Seedance 2.0 Pro at 1080p lists 160 credits for 4 seconds (40 a second). Kling and Seedance are video models made by other companies.
• Extras: the Standard plan lists no watermarks, but the page does not address commercial use. Check the terms before you run ads. Read can I use AI video commercially.

There is no Veo price reliable enough to use (Veo is Google's video model), so it is left out. Check the vendor page for any tool you want to price.

A worked example with Runway's numbers and made-up retries

Standard costs $15 for 625 credits, which is $0.024 a credit. On Gen-4.5 at 12 credits per second, that is about $0.29 per second. Everything below uses that plan rate. The number of attempts and the hourly rate are my invented inputs. Swap in your own.

Say you want a 30 second ad built from six clips of 5 seconds each.

Line	Gen-4.5	Kling 4.0, 1080p	Seedance 2.0 Pro, 1080p
Credits per second	12	23.6	40
30 seconds if every clip is kept	360 credits, about $9	708 credits, about $17	1,200 credits, about $29
Made-up: 5 attempts per kept clip	1,800 credits, about $43	3,540 credits, about $85	6,000 credits, about $144

Two things to notice. First, retries, not the sticker price, are the cost: five tries per kept clip multiplies the bill by five. Nobody publishes a reliable average for this, so measure your own for a week. Second, the plan matters. Standard gives 625 credits a month, which Runway says is 52 seconds of Gen-4.5, and unused monthly credits do not roll over. Five attempts per clip for a 30 second ad needs 1,800 credits, so you would need a bigger plan or several months of credits. The Runway FAQ says extra credits can be bought from the dashboard, with a minimum purchase of 1,000 credits, and that bought credits never expire. It does not state the price on that page, so check it.

The cost people leave out is yours. Suppose it takes 3 hours to write prompts, pick the best clips, fix the problems and assemble the ad. At a made-up $50 an hour that is $150. Put it next to the credits:

Line (made-up inputs)	Amount
Credits, Gen-4.5, 5 attempts per kept clip	about $43
Your time, 3 hours at $50	$150
Voiceover and music licences	Add your own number
Editing tool for captions and logo	Add your own number
Running total before voice, music and tools	about $193

That is far below the traditional ranges above. But the two are not the same product. The studio quote usually includes things the AI route does not.

What a traditional quote usually contains that AI output does not

• A person who is responsible for the result. Someone who fixes it, and answers if it goes wrong.
• Actors with signed releases, a licensed music and voice chain, and clear rights.
• Reshoots and revisions. A set number of rounds, often 2 to 3.
• Delivery in every format you need.
• Script and concept work, if you ask for it.

And some items cost the same on both routes: the script and the offer, a landing page, captions, rights for any voice you use, and the media spend to show the ad. The video is often the smaller bill.

Hidden costs on each side

Traditional (as stated by the sellers)	AI route
Each extra 30 seconds adds 25 to 40% (Video Explainers)	Longer ads need more clips and more retries
Rush work adds 25 to 50% (Video Explainers)	No rush fee, but your own hours
Human voiceover, $200 to $1,000 (Video Explainers)	Voice licences or a separate voice tool
Extra revision rounds beyond those included	Extra attempts, which cost credits and time
Source files, social cut-downs and format conversions, which some studios charge for	Resizing and cut-downs in an editor you must pay for or learn
Stock footage and music pass-through	Music and voice rights, plus checking the tool's terms for your plan

Which route for which job

Job	Route I would start with
Quick social ad or short post	Phone footage or AI clips, finished in a simple editor
Product demo	Real footage of the product, with AI used for background shots
Explainer with a clear script	A freelancer, a template tool or a hybrid, depending on budget
Brand film or TV spot	A traditional or hybrid studio
Testimonial	Real people only. See when not to use AI video
Ongoing weekly content	A subscription or a retainer, compared on cost per video

If a real person must speak, or a real product must be held in hand, film it on a phone before you think about AI. If you need actors, releases and a broadcast ready result, a studio or a hybrid is the safer buy. Subscriptions from video studios are a third route between one-off jobs and doing it yourself, and most "AI versus traditional" pages skip them. Compare them on cost per video.

Ways to spend less without losing quality

• Write the script and the offer before you spend anything. A weak message wastes any budget.
• Film the real parts on a phone and use AI only for the shots you cannot film.
• Cap your attempts. Pick a limit, for example five tries per shot, then change the idea or switch to stock footage.
• Ask studios for a price per video with a set number of revision rounds.
• Reuse. One good clip can become several formats.
• Learn the credit costs before you start. How to spend credits wisely covers a method for measuring cost per approved clip.

Questions to ask before you pay anyone

1. What exactly is included: script, voice, music, revisions, formats?
2. How many revision rounds are free, and what does a further round cost?
3. Who owns the final files and the source files, and is there a fee for them?
4. Are there rush fees or length surcharges?
5. For AI work: which tool, which plan, and does its licence cover commercial use?
6. Who checks the result for mistakes and rights problems before it goes live?

How I'd approach this

I would not trust any single number on this page, including mine. I would get two or three real quotes for the same short brief, run one small AI test with a hard cap on attempts, and time myself accurately. Then I would compare cost per approved video, including my hours, side by side.

For most small businesses I expect a mixed answer: real footage for the parts that must be true, AI for extra shots and variants, and a person for the final check. If you want help setting that up so it is repeatable, Blur Studio builds the workflow around the tools: a shared asset library, a review and approval page and a shot list template. See how I work with businesses. For the technology behind the clips, start with what AI video generation is and how it works.