The last week of July 2026 produced two flagship AI video launches within days of each other: ByteDance released Seedance 2.5 on July 31, and MiniMax released MiniMax H3, the third generation of its Hailuo video line. Both published official API pricing at launch, which makes a direct cost comparison possible on day one — something that was not true for most earlier flagship releases.
This article compares only the launch pricing of these two models, using the providers' official price pages reviewed on August 3, 2026. For the full market picture — HeyGen, Google Veo, Runway, Adobe Firefly, Pika, and FreeLipSync — see the continuously updated AI Video Pricing Report: Second-Half 2026.
Quick answer: MiniMax H3 is cheaper at both published tiers. H3 costs $0.08 per second at 768p and $0.13 per second at 2K, while Seedance 2.5's official examples work out to $0.103 per second at 480p and $0.231 per second at 720p. H3's 2K output is about 44% cheaper than Seedance 2.5's 720p output despite the higher resolution. Seedance answers with breadth rather than price: a 50-input reference ceiling, app-side 4K and 30-second modes, and the cheaper Seedance 2.0 family that remains on sale below it.
Price is not quality. Nothing here claims the two models produce equivalent footage — that requires testing your own prompts. This is the part of the decision you can verify with arithmetic.
The Launch Price Sheet
| Model and tier | Official price | Billing basis |
|---|---|---|
| MiniMax H3, 768p | $0.08/s | Direct per-second billing |
| Seedance 2.5, 480p | $0.103/s | Official 5s example ($0.514 per video), token billing |
| MiniMax H3, 2K | $0.13/s | Direct per-second billing |
| Seedance 2.5, 720p | $0.231/s | Official 5s example ($1.156 per video), token billing |
Both providers charge only for successful generations. Prices are USD from the international platforms (BytePlus ModelArk and the MiniMax open platform), reviewed August 3, 2026.
What Seedance 2.5 Costs
ByteDance publishes Seedance 2.5 token rates on BytePlus ModelArk for 480p and 720p outputs only: $10.70 per million tokens without video input, and $6.40 per million with video input. Its official reference examples (16:9, five-second output, no video input) convert to $0.514 per video at 480p and $1.156 at 720p — $0.103 and $0.231 per second. Jobs that include input video are billed for the input duration too, with published five-second-output examples ranging from $0.553 to $2.152 (480p) and $1.244 to $4.838 (720p) depending on input length, plus minimum-token floors.
The Chinese listing on Volcengine matches closely: ¥70 and ¥42 per million tokens, with the 720p five-second reference video at ¥7.56, about ¥1.51 per second.
Two launch caveats matter for budgeting. First, the marquee capabilities — native 30-second single-shot generation, up to 50 multimodal reference inputs, 4K 10-bit output, and native audio with phoneme-level lip sync — were app-side features in Jimeng and Dreamina at review time; the API price list stops at 720p and its examples assume five-second outputs. Second, Seedance 2.5 is a premium tier, not a replacement: it costs roughly 1.5x Seedance 2.0 at the same resolution ($0.231 vs $0.15 at 720p), and the entire 2.0 family stays on sale at unchanged prices.
What MiniMax H3 Costs
MiniMax prices H3 as pure pay-as-you-go: $0.13 per second of 2K output and $0.08 per second of 768p output, generating 4-15 second clips with audio produced alongside the video. Reference inputs have their own billing rules: audio references are free, the first five image references are free ($0.04 for each additional image), and input video is billed by its duration at the same per-second rate as the output tier. A separate regeneration lane upscales a finished 768p video to 2K for $0.05 per second of regenerated output.
There is no subscription path: MiniMax's video packages state that "MiniMax H3 is not supported yet," so the per-second price is the price. The older Hailuo 2.3 and Hailuo 02 models continue to be sold through point-based packages.
Head-to-Head Math
Per minute of output, the published rates give:
| Output | MiniMax H3 | Seedance 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Draft tier (768p / 480p) | $4.80/min | $6.18/min |
| Top API tier (2K / 720p) | $7.80/min | $13.86/min |
Three comparisons stand out:
- H3's 2K undercuts Seedance 2.5's 720p by about 44% ($0.13 vs $0.231 per second) — the cheaper model is also the higher-resolution one at the top of each API price list.
- H3's draft tier wins too: 768p at $0.08 beats Seedance 2.5's 480p at $0.103, again at higher resolution.
- H3's regeneration lane makes drafting free of penalty: 768p ($0.08/s) plus 2K regeneration ($0.05/s) exactly equals direct 2K ($0.13/s), so drafting first saves money in direct proportion to your reject rate. Three 10-second drafts plus one 2K upgrade cost $2.90; three direct 2K takes cost $3.90.
Where Seedance 2.5 pushes back: its reference ceiling (up to 50 inputs in ByteDance's apps, versus H3's 12-file cap of 9 images, 3 videos, and 3 audio clips), its app-side 4K and 30-second single-shot modes, and the fact that ByteDance offers a full price ladder below it — Seedance 2.0 Mini still starts at $0.04 per second at 480p, the cheapest published API rate in our tracking.
What Neither Launch Changes
Neither model moves the budget floor. The cheapest API anchors in our August 2026 price snapshot are unchanged: Seedance 2.0 Mini at $0.04 per second (480p) and Google Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.05 (720p). Both flagships are premium finishing tiers.
The launches also do not change the specialist math. Both models now generate audio natively — Seedance 2.5 even advertises phoneme-level lip sync — but for the narrower job of putting new speech on an existing face photo or video, a focused tool remains far cheaper: FreeLipSync Starter works out to about $0.0042 per second at a practical one-minute average, roughly 20x-55x below the new flagship rates. Generate scenes with a flagship when you need new footage; sync faces with a specialist when you already have the footage.
FAQ
How much does Seedance 2.5 cost per second? Using ByteDance's official five-second reference examples on BytePlus, Seedance 2.5 costs $0.103 per second at 480p and $0.231 per second at 720p without video input. Billing is token-based ($10.70 per million tokens without video input, $6.40 with), and only successful generations are charged.
How much does MiniMax H3 cost per second? MiniMax H3 costs $0.13 per second for 2K output and $0.08 per second for 768p, pay-as-you-go. Audio references are free, the first five image references are free ($0.04 each afterward), and input video is billed by duration at the output tier's rate.
Is Seedance 2.5 available in 1080p or 4K through the API? Not at review time. The published API token rates and price examples cover only 480p and 720p; the 4K 10-bit and 30-second single-shot modes were features of ByteDance's Jimeng and Dreamina apps.
Can you buy MiniMax H3 through a subscription or package? No. MiniMax's video packages page states that H3 is not supported yet, so the model is pay-as-you-go only. The older Hailuo 2.3 and Hailuo 02 models are still available through point-based packages.
Which model is cheaper overall? MiniMax H3, at both published tiers — and its 2K output costs less than Seedance 2.5's 720p output. But the cheapest way to buy Seedance is not 2.5 at all: Seedance 2.0 Mini remains on sale at $0.04 per second (480p), the lowest published API price in our tracking.
Sources
All prices were read from the official pages on August 3, 2026:
- BytePlus ModelArk pricing for Seedance and Volcengine model pricing (Chinese)
- MiniMax pay-as-you-go pricing and MiniMax video packages pricing
For monthly re-verification of these numbers alongside HeyGen, Veo, Runway, Adobe Firefly, Pika, and FreeLipSync, follow the AI Video Pricing Report: Second-Half 2026 — it is updated monthly with source screenshots.
If your actual job is making an existing face speak, try FreeLipSync without signing up — no watermark on free outputs — or compare the current Free, Starter, and Pro plans.