Cheapest AI Video & Image API: Full Cost Breakdown (2026)
Key Takeaways
- Video API pricing compares cleanly, since most vendors bill per second of output — Siray runs 14-39% below Fal.ai's official rates across Seedance 2.0, Veo 3.1, and Grok Imagine Video.
- Image API pricing is harder to compare directly: Fal.ai bills most models per megapixel, Siray bills flat per image — the "cheaper" answer depends on your output resolution, not just the sticker price.
- Both video and image models sit behind the same Siray API key.
Why AI API pricing is hard to compare
Every vendor bills differently. Some charge per second of video generated, others per megapixel of image output, others per flat image regardless of resolution. A price that looks 50% cheaper on a spec sheet can turn out to be the same cost — or more — once you account for what unit it's actually billing. This piece pulls real, current prices directly from vendor pricing pages (not aggregator estimates) for both video and image generation, on Siray and on Fal.ai, and calls out the billing-unit differences instead of hiding them behind a single blended discount number.
Video pricing: a clean per-second comparison
Video billing is the easier case — most vendors, including Siray and Fal.ai, charge per second of generated output, so the numbers line up directly.
Model | Fal.ai official | Siray | Savings |
Seedance 2.0 Fast (i2v, 720p) | $0.2419/s | $0.147/s | ~39% |
Veo 3.1 (i2v, native audio) | $0.40/s | $0.32/s | 20% |
Grok Imagine Video (i2v, 720p) | $0.07/s | $0.06/s | ~14% |
One caveat worth stating plainly: Fal's Veo 3.1 Standard tier splits into a muted rate ($0.20/s) and an audio-inclusive rate ($0.40/s). Siray's Veo 3.1 endpoint always outputs native audio with no mute option, so the $0.40/s audio rate — not the cheaper muted one — is the only fair comparison point here.
Image pricing: same models, different billing units
Image pricing is where "cheaper" gets slippery. Fal.ai bills most image models per megapixel of output — so the price scales with resolution. Siray bills a flat rate per image, regardless of resolution up to the model's ceiling. That means the honest answer to "which is cheaper" depends on what resolution you're actually generating at, not just which number is smaller on the page.
Model | Siray (flat, per image) | Fal.ai (per megapixel) |
Hunyuan Image 3 Instruct | $0.10 | $0.10/MP |
Z-Image Turbo | $0.004 | $0.005/MP |
Seedream 4.5 (incl. uncensored/-spicy mode) | $0.04 | ~$0.0425/image |
At sub-1-megapixel outputs, Fal's per-megapixel billing can come out cheaper than Siray's flat rate. At 1MP and above — which covers most standard generation sizes — Siray's flat per-image rate holds steady while Fal's cost keeps climbing with resolution. Z-Image Turbo lands close to price parity between the two platforms either way. Seedream 4.5 is also close to parity on raw price; Siray's actual differentiator there isn't cost, it's that the same model is available in an uncensored mode through the same endpoint.
One API key for both
Video and image models sit behind the same Siray API key and request format — switching from a video model to an image model, or between vendors entirely, is a one-line change rather than a new integration.
For a deeper look at video pricing methodology and additional models, see Fal.ai Alternative: Comparing AI Video APIs on Price and Speed.Create your free Siray account and start generating with real, transparent pricing across both video and image models.