Runway Pricing Explained: Plans, Costs and What You Get

Runway pricing starts at $0 for 125 one-time credits, then $15 a month for Standard, $35 for Pro and $95 for Max. See what each plan buys in video seconds.

By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-08T04:28:04+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-08T04:28:04+00:00

Runway pricing is credit-based. You buy a monthly credit allowance, and every image, video, or audio generation spends credits from that balance. The free plan costs $0 and gives 125 credits once. Paid plans start at $15 a month, or $12 a month billed yearly, for 625 credits a month.

The number that matters is not the dollar price. It is how many seconds of video your credits buy. Runway's flagship model, Gen-4.5, costs 12 credits per second. This article works through every plan, the credit math, and which plan fits which kind of creator.

Runway pricing at a glance

Runway sells four self-serve plans for individuals, plus a Team plan. The table below uses the prices and allowances from the official pricing page.

Yearly billing saves $36 a year on Standard, $84 on Pro, and $228 on Max. The Team plan covers groups of 2 to 9 people, with credits pooled across the workspace.

What a credit buys on Runway

Credits are the unit you spend to generate images, video, and audio. Each model costs a set number of credits based on the model, the duration, and the resolution. Runway's own pricing page converts each plan into seconds for its main models.

• Gen-4.5: 12 credits per second. Standard buys about 52 seconds a month. Pro buys about 187 seconds. Max buys about 791 seconds.
• Gen-4 Turbo: Standard buys about 104 seconds a month. Pro buys about 375 seconds. Max buys about 1,900 seconds.
• Gen-4 Images (1080p): Standard buys about 78 images a month. Pro buys about 281. Max buys about 1,187.

A five-second Gen-4.5 clip costs 60 credits. That means a Standard plan covers roughly ten five-second clips a month, before any rerolls. Every failed or repeated generation spends credits too, so budget for at least one extra attempt per finished clip.

Partner models cost more. Runway also hosts third-party models such as Kling 4.0 and Veo, and these carry their own credit rates. Kling 4.0 at 1080p lists at 118 credits per five-second clip, with a 25 percent discount running until November 30, 2026.

The free plan: what 125 credits actually buy

The free plan is a test drive. You get 125 credits once, and they do not expire. That buys about 10 seconds of Gen-4.5 video, or a handful of images. You also get 5 GB of storage and access to a selection of generative models to test concepts.

Free output carries a watermark, and the plan covers selected models only. It is enough to learn the interface and to judge whether Runway's output style suits your work. It is not enough to finish a real project. Once the 125 credits are gone, there is no monthly refill on the free plan.

What each paid plan adds

Price is only part of the difference between plans. Features and limits change at each step.

Standard, $15 a month or $12 billed yearly. You get access to all AI video and image models, no watermarks, 4K upscaling, music, voice, and sound effects generation, up to 3 projects, and 5 parallel generations. This is the entry point for anyone making short clips regularly.

Pro, $35 a month or $28 billed yearly. You get everything in Standard, plus 15 parallel generations, up to 5 projects, 1 Brand Kit, 1 custom voice clone, top-up credits at any time, and unlimited 4K video upscaling. Pro suits creators who publish weekly and need consistent branding and voices.

Max, $95 a month or $76 billed yearly. You get early access to new models, 20 parallel generations, up to 10 projects, 3 Brand Kits, 3 custom voice clones, and studio-grade exports including HDR, ProRes, and image sequences. Max is the only plan that rolls unused credits over, and only for one month.

Credit rollover, top-ups, and the API

Credit rules decide the real cost of a plan. Standard and Pro credits do not roll over. They reset within 24 hours of your billing date each cycle. A quiet month on those plans means credits lost.

Max rolls up to one month of unused credits into the next month. If you need more credits on any paid plan, you can buy top-ups from the Plans and Billing page in your dashboard. The minimum purchase is 1,000 credits, and purchased credits never expire.

Runway also sells API access separately. The developer API charges $0.01 per credit. At that rate, a five-second Gen-4.5 clip costs $0.60 per generation through the API. API billing is pay-as-you-go and suits developers who generate video inside their own apps rather than in the Runway studio.

Which Runway plan should you pick

Match the plan to your monthly output, not to the feature list.

• Stay free if you only want to try Runway once. The 125 credits show you the quality and the workflow.
• Pick Standard if you make a few short clips a month for social media. Ten five-second clips is enough for occasional posts.
• Pick Pro if you publish weekly, need a custom voice, or want brand kits. The 2,250 credits cover about three minutes of Gen-4.5 a month.
• Pick Max if you run a studio pipeline or generate daily. The rollover alone protects heavy users from wasting credits in slow months.

One warning applies to every plan. Credit costs depend on the model you choose. Switching from Gen-4.5 to a partner model like Veo can triple the cost of the same five seconds. Check the credit estimate before each generation, especially on the lower plans.

Bottom line

Runway pricing starts at $0 for a one-time 125 credits, then $15 a month for Standard, $35 for Pro, and $95 for Max, with yearly billing cutting each by about 20 percent. Standard buys about 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 video a month. That is the honest measure of the plan. If you need more than ten short clips a month, Pro is the realistic starting point. If you generate daily, Max and its one-month rollover are worth the step up.