What AI Video Costs in 2026: A 20-Dollar Subscription vs. Agency Prices

A year ago, most agencies would not have considered AI video ready for production. Today Veo 3 delivers footage that is hard to distinguish from real filming. Sora 2 places real people with their own voice in any scene. Seedance 2.5 generates up to 30 seconds in a single shot. AI videos now run longer than 8 seconds. Google AI Pro with Veo 3 costs 20 dollars a month.

Over the past year we built the workflows for our AI productions. We handle every step from idea to finished commercial. Here is our balance sheet, with the costs.

What AI video costs today

We compare the cost of access to the models with the cost of a classic production.

Subscriptions

Google AI Pro with Veo 3 costs 20 dollars a month. The various Flow plans cost 19.99 to 249.99 dollars. Via the API (programming interface), OpenAI charges 0.50 dollars per second of Sora 2 video. A 10-second clip therefore costs a few euros.

Seedance 2.5

Since July 2026, ByteDance's Seedance 2.5 generates up to 30 seconds of picture and sound in one pass. Characters and camera stay stable across the entire shot. Up to 50 reference images serve as specifications for how products and brands are depicted.

Higgsfield and peers

Platforms like Higgsfield offer a dozen models in one subscription, 15 to 99 dollars a month, billed via credits. Videos can be generated there with Veo, Kling and Seedance, without an own API.

Agency retainers

In Germany, agency management of social networks usually costs 800 to 2,500 euros a month. With own video production it is 2,500 to 5,000 euros. A shooting day costs more.

The difference

One month of agency management costs as much as several years of access to the video models. For the price of one shooting day, hundreds of videos can be generated.

For us as an agency this means: on pure production alone, the old prices can no longer be held.

How AI videos can still be recognised

Well-made AI videos can hardly be told apart from real footage with the naked eye. In Veo 3.1, characters stay consistent across scenes. Sora 2 transfers real faces and voices. In Seedance 2.5, light and camera work stay coherent over 30 seconds in a single shot. When checking videos, we can therefore not rely on the visible difference alone.

There are technical markers for AI videos. SynthID embeds a watermark in every single frame. C2PA documents the origin. The EU labelling obligation applies. Instagram, X and Facebook strip this metadata on upload. For the videos shown there, neither AI origin nor authenticity can be proven. Anyone making factual claims in a video therefore needs an editorial team that checks those claims.

What remains: selecting and combining

A finished commercial needs more than a video from a text prompt. From our production: for a single song we generate up to 300 versions, with different instruments, tempos and own voices. We pick the version that fits the purpose. In our videos, concept, copy, visual design, edit, sound and message are aligned with each other. The model delivers parts. The result comes from selection and control.

Falling model prices do not make this work cheaper. With more material, careful selection gains importance.

The consequence

The business of simple product videos, compilations of archive material and template websites is disappearing. What remains is consulting: which problems can be solved with AI, which model suits them, and who takes responsibility for the claims in the finished video. Those who only execute get replaced. Those who help decide are needed.

We have therefore spent a year changing our own workflows. Our consulting is based on this experience. This website is the result.

Costs before you commit

You see a prototype and its costs first, before commissioning anything.