Veo 3 Pricing — How Much Does a Clip Cost via the API, Without a Subscription

Veo 3 pricing follows two paths: the subscription (Google AI Pro / Ultra, with Flow credits) and the API, billed per clip. With the API, on Kunavo, Veo 3.1 Lite costs $0.18+, Veo 3.1 Fast costs $0.36+, and Veo 3.1 Quality costs $1.60+ per 720p clip — with no monthly plan and no Google Cloud project. The cheaper path is determined by one division: subscription price ÷ price per clip = break-even point.

When you search for “how much does Veo 3 cost,” you find almost exclusively subscription comparisons. That half of the answer is covered; the other half — what each clip costs when paid for individually through the API — is missing. This page fills that gap with the numbers.

Two ways to pay for Veo 3

Subscription prices and the number of credits change often: we do not reproduce them here; check them on Google’s official page. For comparison, the division below is enough.

Veo 3 API pricing — per clip, by tier

The prices below are read from the model catalog: if the price changes, the table changes with it.

The “+” means “starting at”: it is the minimum price for a 720p clip, and a higher resolution may cost more. The IDs remain those of the veo-3 family; the current generation shown in the table runs behind the scenes. Billing is in dollars, clip by clip, against a prepaid balance.

Break-even point — subscription price ÷ price per clip

Subscription or API: the number of clips per month decides. Convert the subscription price to dollars and divide it by the price of the tier you use: you get the break-even point. Below it, the API costs less; above it, month after month, the subscription wins. As a reference, here is how many clips $10 of subscription is worth:

Multiply by the number of times your subscription contains $10: you have the break-even point for your plan. One more figure is worth checking: if the subscription credits cover fewer clips than that break-even point, the API is cheaper in every case. Conversely, if you generate in Flow almost every day and use up your credits each month, stay with the subscription — especially if you also use the rest of the plan.

The strongest lever — mixing tiers

The biggest reduction in the bill comes from separating testing from the final version. Refine the prompt in Veo 3.1 Lite as many times as needed, then run only the approved prompt in Veo 3.1 Quality. With 10 drafts and 1 final version, doing everything in Veo 3.1 Quality costs $17.60; moving the drafts to Veo 3.1 Lite, $3.40. In the code, only one word changes: the model name.

The call — just watch out for asynchronous processing

Unlike text, video is an asynchronous task. POST /v1/videos first returns the task ID; you then query GET /v1/videos/{id} until the status is completed or failed.

# Le minimum pour générer un clip et attendre le résultat.
# Ni abonnement ni projet Google Cloud : une seule clé.
import os, time, requests

KEY = os.environ["KUNAVO_API_KEY"]
H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {KEY}"}

# 1. Envoi — renvoie tout de suite l'identifiant de la tâche (statut "queued").
job = requests.post(
    "https://api.kunavo.com/v1/videos",
    headers=H,
    json={
        "model": "veo-3-lite",  # brouillons en Lite, version finale en "veo-3-quality"
        "prompt": "une ruelle de Montmartre sous la pluie, reflets des réverbères, la caméra avance lentement",
        "aspect_ratio": "16:9",
    },
    timeout=60,
).json()

# 2. La génération vidéo est asynchrone : on interroge la tâche jusqu'à la fin.
while True:
    r = requests.get(
        f"https://api.kunavo.com/v1/videos/{job['id']}", headers=H, timeout=30
    ).json()
    if r["status"] in ("completed", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)

print(r["output"]["url"] if r["status"] == "completed" else r["error"])

Failed requests are not billed. Regenerating because the result is unsatisfactory, however, is a successful generation and is billed each time. Response format, image-to-video, and webhooks are all covered in the video API documentation (in English).

For payment, top-ups are processed through Stripe: bank cards (CB, Visa, Mastercard, American Express), Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Link, plus Bancontact for payments from Belgium. SEPA Direct Debit is not offered; a debit card works normally. Prepaid balance from a $10 top-up, with no subscription, and the balance never expires.

In all honesty — when this approach is not right

Through the gateway, you start without a Google billing account or Cloud project, but with shared capacity, not a quota dedicated to your project. If your volume requires a guaranteed quota or a contractual SLA, go directly through Google: this page does not claim to replace that.

The complete guide, in English, is in Veo 3 API, and the comparison with the other video models is in the text-to-video API guide.

Frequently asked questions