A credit has no standard price. On entry plans read on 2 Oct 2026 it costs $0.005 at Adobe Firefly, $0.024 at Runway, $0.023 at Synthesia, $0.048 at HeyGen and 0.05 euro at invideo, and the same plan’s credit gets cheaper as you move up (Runway falls from $0.024 on Standard to $0.010 on Max, monthly billing). So compare the output, not the credit: the table below gives what each vendor’s own page says a standard output costs in credits, then converts that to dollars.
Price per credit, and what one output costs
USD list prices, monthly billing unless stated. Price per credit is plan price divided by the plan’s credits. “One output” is the vendor’s stated or implied rate; where only an “up to” count is given, the rate is our division.
| Tool and plan | Price per credit | One output, in credits | One output, in dollars |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Firefly Standard ($9.99, 2,000 credits) | $0.005 | 5-second video: about 100 (2,000 credits for “up to 20”) | about $0.50 |
| Runway Standard ($15, 625 credits) | $0.024 ($0.019 annual) | 5 s of Gen-4.5 video: 60 | $1.44 |
| Runway Max ($95, 9,500 credits) | $0.010 ($0.008 annual) | 5 s of Gen-4.5 video: 60 | $0.60 |
| Runway developer API | $0.010 flat | 5 s of Gen-4.5 video: 60 | $0.60 |
| HeyGen Creator ($29, 600 credits) | $0.048 ($0.040 annual) | 1 minute of avatar video: 16 to 48, by avatar type | $0.77 to $2.32 |
| Synthesia Starter ($29, 1,250 credits) | $0.023 ($0.014 annual) | 1 minute of video: 100 (stated on the page; its free allowance covers the first 10 minutes on every plan) | about $2.32 |
| ElevenLabs Starter ($6, 30,000 credits) | $0.0002 | 1 minute of audio: about 1,000 (stated “approximately”) | about $0.20 |
| invideo Starter (EUR 20, 400 credits; the page read showed euros) | EUR 0.05 | One Nano Banana Pro image: about 2.5 (400 credits for “160 generations”); one Seedance 2 Fast video: about 27 (400 for “~15 videos”) | about EUR 0.13 per image, EUR 1.33 per video |
| Midjourney Basic ($10, 200 Fast GPU minutes) | GPU minutes, not credits: $0.05 a minute | One Fast SD image prompt: about 0.8 minutes | $0.04 |
What the rows show:
- The same model costs 2.4 times as much on one plan as on another. Runway’s credit is $0.024 on Standard and $0.010 on the API, for an identical 5-second clip at $1.44 and $0.60. The plan, not the model, decides most of it. That gap is the subject of AI video cost per second.
- Cheap credits can still buy a dear output. ElevenLabs credits cost a fraction of a cent because one minute of audio takes about a thousand of them; HeyGen’s credit costs 240 times as much per credit but a minute takes 16 to 48.
- Some vendors publish the conversion in a different place or unit. invideo’s page states output counts per plan (images and videos), not minutes of finished video, so only those outputs are priced here. HeyGen’s pricing page omits the per-minute rate; it sits on a help-centre page.
Do credits expire?
| Tool | What the vendor’s page says | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Firefly | Monthly allocation resets each billing cycle and does not roll over; add-on credits start at 2,000 | 2 Oct 2026 |
| Runway | Monthly credits do not roll over, except on Max, where up to one month rolls over; free plan’s 125 credits are one-time | 2 Oct 2026 |
| Midjourney | Unused Fast time does not carry over | 2 Oct 2026 |
| HeyGen | Monthly plans: unused credits roll over for one more billing cycle; annual plans: credits accumulate until the annual renewal; nothing carries over after cancellation | 2 Oct 2026 |
| invideo | Credits per seat per month; its FAQ says unused credits do not roll over | 2 Oct 2026 |
| Synthesia, ElevenLabs | Rollover terms were not on the pricing text captured | 2 Oct 2026 |
Use-it-or-lose-it credits change the real price. A plan priced per credit assumes you spend them; spend half and the cost of each output doubles. The same applies to the per-hour figures on ElevenLabs vs Murf vs WellSaid.
How to compare two credit plans
- Find the vendor’s stated credits for one output you actually make (one clip, one minute, one image).
- Divide the plan price by plan credits for the credit price, then multiply by step 1.
- Divide again by the share of the month’s credits you will really spend, and by the share of outputs you keep.
- Check whether top-ups cost more than the plan rate. Adobe’s page says add-ons exist but not their price; Runway’s consumer page states a 1,000-credit minimum top-up and not a credit price.
Each tool’s own page has the conditions: Adobe Firefly, Runway, HeyGen, Synthesia against HeyGen, and the pricing tracker for every plan with its check date. Kling’s credit price is not shown because its plan tables load only after sign-in.
Method
Researched from the vendor pricing pages and documentation listed in the sources, read on 2 Oct 2026, USD list prices except invideo, whose page showed euros; Firefly’s US prices came from a fetch and its credit counts from the page’s plan table. Price per credit and cost per output are our division and assume the whole allowance is spent. Nothing here comes from using these tools.