Leap’s guide to which video model to use, dated October 6 in the search index, is not a ranking of souls. It is a shop. Prices are Leap’s, per clip, in dollars. Runtimes are Leap’s at default settings. A dash means the catalog did not list it. Google’s Veo 3.1, 8 seconds with sound, shows a default run of $3.52. Wan 3.0 from Alibaba starts at $0.28. That is the article.
We already surveyed Sora, Kling, and Runway as a filmmaking race in April. SOMOS5 locked a visual bible so the weekly model would not restyle the characters. This week is what the meter says if you actually press generate.
$3.52 is an 8-second Veo clip
Veo 3.1, Leap says, starts from words or a first frame. Lengths are 4, 6, or 8 seconds. Resolution up to 1080p. Sound on by default. The “from” price is $0.88. The default they printed is $3.52 for eight seconds with sound, about 80 seconds to come back. Veo 3.1 Lite is the discount sibling: from $0.13, about 27 seconds to render, same 4/6/8-second cap, still up to 1080p.
If you are comparing “Google quality” without the invoice, you are shopping a trailer. Eight seconds is a shot, not a scene. Four of those is half a minute and more than $14 at the default Veo line, before retries. Lite exists because someone at Google knows the full meter hurts. Leap is not hiding the gap. The table is the gap.
Treat every number as Leap’s storefront. Another host will print another column. The useful move is to pick a host and a default, then refuse to talk about “best” until you have a clip length and a dollar figure on the same line.
Lite, Wan, and the 6-cent Seedance
Wan 3.0, Alibaba, takes words, a first frame, or a last frame. 5, 10, or 15 seconds. Up to 1080p. Sound on by default. Default run $1.10 for a 5-second 1080p clip. Floor $0.28. Runtime about 3 minutes. That is the cheap long clip in this table. Fifteen seconds is still a bumper. It is almost twice Veo’s maximum length.
Seedance 1.5 Pro from ByteDance is the floor that looks like a rounding error: from $0.067, 5 or 10 seconds, up to 1080p, sound when you turn it on, about 3 minutes to render. Seedance 2.5, in preview, takes up to four reference images, goes to 15 seconds, sound on by default, from $0.60. Preview means the SKU can move. Do not write a pipeline around a preview row.
Kling 3.0, Kuaishou: words, first frame, or last frame; 5 or 10 seconds; from $0.92; about 96 seconds. Leap did not fill resolution or sound in that row. Do not invent them.
Grok Imagine Video, xAI: 5 seconds, up to 720p, sound yes, from $0.28, about 23 seconds. MiniMax H3: 6 seconds, sound yes, from $0.86, about 4 minutes. FLUX.3 Video from Black Forest Labs, preview: 5 to 20 seconds, up to 1080p, sound on, from $0.94, about 65 seconds. Gemini Omni Flash 1.1: 3 to 10 seconds, up to 4K, from $0.10, about 24 seconds, sound not listed.
A Wan 2.6 anecdote on the same page charged $0.55 and came back in 1 minute 35 seconds. That is one run, not a benchmark. It is useful only as a reminder that the “from” column is not the charge you will see.
Firefly as a store and Nano Banana as a SKU was the still-image version of this argument. Video just prints the seconds next to the cents.
Length caps are the art direction
The creative constraint in Leap’s table is not style. It is duration. Veo tops out at 8 seconds. Kling’s listed lengths are 5 or 10. Wan and Seedance 2.5 go to 15. FLUX.3 Video’s preview row goes to 20. If your storyboard has a 45-second walk, you are either cutting or stitching, and stitching is where identity drifts.
We already said InstructMesh repairs the mesh while relight fakes the lamp. Same split. The model will give you a shot. Continuity is a different product. SOMOS5’s visual bible was a human lock because the weekly model would not hold a face. A 15-second Wan clip with a last-frame control is closer to a lock than a 5-second Grok clip you generate 12 times and hope.
Last-frame control (Wan, Kling, Seedance 1.5 Pro) is the row to care about if you are joining shots. First-frame only (Veo, Grok, FLUX.3 Video, MiniMax) is a poster that moves. Four reference images on Seedance 2.5 is the preview feature that sounds like a bible. Preview.
Sound-on-by-default is not free. Veo’s $3.52 default includes it. Seedance 1.5 Pro makes you opt in. If you were going to replace the audio anyway, do not pay for the model’s room tone.
MixVio sells the missing download
MixVio’s October 1 wire is a vendor post from Orvyno LLC in Wyoming. Fourteen public model families, 26 generation routes, video and image and audio, one account, one credit pile, private workspace. The pitch is that an image can go to edit or image-to-video without downloading and reuploading. Selected video workflows take up to 30 images, 10 videos, and 10 audio files, 50 files in one reference pack. Credits are quoted before the run; failed or eligible cancelled jobs release the hold.
Treat every sentence as a claim. The interesting claim is not “26 routes.” It is the download. Every comparison table assumes you will leave the shop. MixVio is selling the fact that leaving the shop is the part that breaks identity. That is a real pain. It is also how a credit wallet keeps you.
If you already have a Leap table and a disk, you do not need 50 reference files in someone else’s pack. If your team is losing faces between Midjourney and a video host, a single workspace is a process, not a model. Do not confuse those.
Homogenization is a SKU problem
Business Insider, October 2: Pope Leo XIV, meeting artists and curators in Vatican City, said search engines offer thousands of instantaneous answers and “merely return what already exists and tend to give us what we already want.” Homogenization, in that telling, is a great danger. The Church wants to safeguard “what is human.” The same piece recaps Ghibli-style ChatGPT memes from spring 2025, Meta’s image toys, Grok Imagine.
You do not need the theology to use the sentence. Leap’s table is a list of ways to return a plausible 8 seconds. If every shop defaults to the same length and the same “cinematic” prompt, the feed will look like the feed. The Pope is talking about taste. The producer problem is cheaper: retries converge. Budget a model switch the way you budget a lens change, or you will ship the mean clip.
This is not a reason to avoid the tools. It is a reason to write the shot list before you open the catalog. Eight seconds of Veo that you meant is still eight seconds. Eight seconds you generated because the button was there is the search engine.
Runtimes are a second price
Leap prints wall-clock next to dollars. Veo 3.1 about 80 seconds. Lite about 27. Grok Imagine Video about 23. Gemini Omni Flash about 24. Kling about 96. FLUX.3 Video about 65. Wan 3.0 about 3 minutes. MiniMax H3 about 4 minutes. Seedance 1.5 Pro about 3 minutes. Seedance 2.5 has a dash. If you are iterating a product shot, 4 minutes times 20 retries is an afternoon. The $0.86 MiniMax row is not cheap if you are paying in attention.
720p on Grok versus 1080p on Veo/Wan is a delivery constraint. Social crops will hide it. A client deck will not. 4K on Gemini Omni Flash 1.1 is the upsell in the table; sound is a dash there, so do not assume a voice track.
Failed generations are the hidden multiplier. MixVio’s wire says failed or eligible cancelled tasks release reserved credits and that the quote is shown before you run. Leap’s table does not print a refund policy. Budget retries as 2x clips for anything with a face. If you cannot afford 2x Veo defaults, you cannot afford Veo defaults.
Image-to-video is how still pipelines enter this chart. Veo, Lite, Grok, MiniMax, FLUX.3 Video, Gemini Omni Flash take a first frame. Wan and Kling and Seedance 1.5 Pro also take a last frame. If your stills already live in another shop, MixVio’s no-download pitch is aimed at you. So is vendor lock. Export the still anyway. A private workspace is not an archive.
The Pope line about returning what we already want is the retry loop. The tenth Veo clip will look like the first nine if the prompt never changed. Change the length or the model before you change adjectives.
What to actually run
Pick a length first. If the shot is 5 seconds or less, the table is crowded and the decision is price versus 720p (Grok) versus 1080p. If you need 15 seconds, Veo is not in the row. Wan 3.0 and Seedance 2.5 are. If you need a last frame, drop Veo and Grok.
Print Leap’s default dollars next to your storyboard. A 24-shot sequence at Veo 8-second defaults is not a mood board. It is a bill. Lite exists. Seedance 1.5 Pro exists. Use them for blocking. Spend the $3.52 on the shot you will keep.
Do not migrate your whole pipeline into MixVio because a wire said 50 references. Do not ignore the download problem if you are already losing a character between stills and motion. And do not call any of this “best” without a host name, a clip length, and a receipt.
Orvyno LLC being a Wyoming company is a registration fact from the wire, not a quality score. Use it only if you need a vendor legal name on a procurement form. The product question is still whether you will export.
Write the host name on the storyboard. Leap’s dollars are Leap’s. MixVio’s credits are MixVio’s. If you change shops, reprint the column. Do not carry $3.52 into a different meter and call it a benchmark.
The catalog moved this week. Your bible did not. Keep the bible.