Best Image-to-Video AI: 10 Models Compared by Price and Job

Ten of the models in the Video studio will take a picture and animate it. The cheapest floor is 18 credits, the dearest is 280, and the gap between them is not quality — it is resolution, duration and how much motion the model is built to hold.

One of the ten does nothing else. Grok Imagine 1.5 is image-to-video only, no text option in the picker at all, which reads like a limitation until you use it: it is the model built around a still you already composed, not one that happens to also accept one.

The ten, cheapest floor first

Every number here is the lowest price that mode actually charges — mostly the smallest resolution and shortest duration the picker offers, since a handful of these models don't sell a smaller tier at all.

• Seedance 1.5 Pro — 18 credits, 480p. Cheapest animate-a-still price on the platform.
• Grok Imagine 1.5 — 24 credits, 480p. Image-to-video only — see above.
• Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro — 105 credits, 5s. No smaller resolution tier; this is the floor.
• Kling 2.6 — 138 credits, 5s. Same shape as 2.5 Turbo Pro, one generation newer.
• Kling 3.0 — 140 credits, 720p/4s. No 480p tier.
• Veo 3.1 Fast — 150 credits, 720p. No 480p tier; its upstream model supports native audio, though you should check the actual clip before relying on it.
• MiniMax H3 — 160 credits. 720p is its only selectable resolution, so there is one price and no size to choose.
• Seedance 2.0 — 190 credits, 480p.
• HappyHorse 1.1 — 225 credits, 720p. No 480p tier.
• Seedance 2.5 — 280 credits, 480p. The current flagship of its family, and it charges flagship prices even at the small tier.

Four of these — Kling 3.0, Veo 3.1 Fast, HappyHorse 1.1 and MiniMax H3 — never offer a 480p discount at all. On those four, 480p is a greyed-out button in the picker rather than a cheaper option you could pick, so the floor above is already the only number you'll see.

What full-size and full-length actually cost

The floor is what a quick test costs. Here is what committing to a real deliverable costs — 720p/4s, then 1080p, then the model's longest offered duration:

• Seedance 1.5 Pro — 35 at 720p/4s, 76 at 1080p, 105 at its 12s max.
• Grok Imagine 1.5 — 45 at 720p/4s, no 1080p tier at all, 135 at its 12s max.
• Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro — no 720p/4s tier (its 5s floor of 105 is the cheapest option), no 1080p tier, 210 at its 10s max.
• Kling 2.6 — no 720p/4s tier (5s floor is 138), no 1080p tier, 275 at its 10s max.
• Kling 3.0 — 140 at 720p/4s, 180 at 1080p, 420 at its 12s max.
• Veo 3.1 Fast — 150 at 720p, 163 at 1080p, and duration doesn't change the price at all — see below.
• MiniMax H3 — 160 at 720p, its only resolution, 480 at its 12s max.
• Seedance 2.0 — 410 at 720p/4s, 1,020 at 1080p, 1,230 at its 12s max.
• HappyHorse 1.1 — 225 at 720p/4s, 291 at 1080p, 675 at its 12s max.
• Seedance 2.5 — 630 at 720p/4s, 1,140 at 1080p, 1,890 at its 12s max.

Veo 3.1 Fast is the one exception worth remembering on its own: its price is fixed per clip regardless of how long the clip runs, which is unusual enough that it is easy to assume you're being overcharged for a short clip when you are actually getting the long one for free.

Which one for which job

Testing whether a still animates at all → Seedance 1.5 Pro. 18 credits is cheap enough to burn through five or six variations of the same shot before you commit to anything upmarket. Nothing else here is close on attempts per credit.

A shot you already composed, and only the motion is in question → Grok Imagine 1.5. You settle framing, lighting and subject at image prices in the Image studio first, then pay 24 credits a go here to iterate purely on how it moves. Being image-to-video only is what makes this workflow predictable — there's no text-to-video fallback pulling the composition somewhere else.

A shot that needs its own sound → Veo 3.1 Fast. Its upstream model supports native audio, and our request does not switch that off. The other models here are submitted with audio disabled or without an audio setting. None of this guarantees what a particular result contains, so check the first clip before relying on its soundtrack.

A long, continuous take rather than a cut → Kling 2.6 or Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro. A full 10 seconds for 275 or 210 credits respectively. Both beat Seedance 2.0's 12-second price by a wide margin if a single unbroken shot is the actual requirement.

Complex physical motion at the top end → Kling 3.0 first, Seedance 2.5 if it can't hold the motion. 140/180 against 630/1,140 for the same 720p/1080p pair. This is the tier you graduate a proven still to, not the one you experiment in — see Kling 3.0 vs Seedance 2.0 for how to tell whether a shot actually needs the upgrade before paying for the flagship price.

Product photography that needs to move → Seedance 1.5 Pro or Kling 3.0, depending on how much the shot moves. A slow push or a label reveal rarely needs flagship motion fidelity; a full turntable or a liquid pour usually does. This is exactly the decision a product-ad video workflow runs into on every shot.

How to use it

1. Have the still ready first. All ten models read the picture you attach; none of them ask what's in it. A clean, well-lit source matters more here than for text-to-video, because the model is extending what's already there rather than inventing it.
2. Pick the model before you write the prompt. Duration options, resolution options and the price on the button all change with the model selected — Kling 2.5/2.6 only offer 5s and 10s, for instance, while the Seedance and Kling 3.0 family offer 4/8/12s.
3. Describe the motion, not the picture. The model can already see the still. Spend the prompt on what moves, how fast, and in what direction — not on redescribing the subject, which risks the model re-rendering it instead of animating it.
4. Start at the floor. Confirm the motion works at the cheapest tier before paying for 1080p or a longer duration on the same prompt.
5. Reach for Grok Imagine 1.5 only when the composition is already locked. If you're still adjusting framing, that back-and-forth is cheaper in the Image studio than in an image-to-video model built to do one specific job.

When it's the wrong tool

None of these ten models take direction mid-clip. "Animate this, then have the subject turn around" is two prompts and two generations, not one — there's no timeline to key frames against.

They also don't fix a bad still. A blurry, oddly cropped, or badly lit source photo animates into a blurry, oddly cropped, badly lit clip. Fix the image first, in the Image studio if it needs it, then animate it.

And if the job genuinely has no starting image — you're inventing a scene from a description, not extending a photo you have — text-to-video is the right mode, not this one. Nine of these ten models do both; only Grok Imagine 1.5 is locked to image-to-video.

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Model pages with the full picture on each family: Kling, Seedance, Grok Imagine. The full text-and-image-to-video shortlist across all ten models, one job at a time: Best AI Video Generator 2026. Credit packs and plans: pricing. Or attach a still and find out: open the Video studio.