Best AI Video Generators in 2026: Free and Paid

Flow is Google's AI film studio, and it is the most generous free option we found. Without any subscription you get 50 Flow credits every day to spend on video.

How far 50 credits go, using Google's own price list:

• Gemini Omni Flash at 720p: 7 credits for 4 seconds, 12 credits for 8 seconds, 15 credits for 10 seconds. That is about four 8-second clips a day.
• Gemini Omni Flash at 360p: 4 to 7 credits per clip, so roughly eight short drafts a day.
• Veo 3.1 Quality: 100 credits per 8-second clip, which is more than the free daily allowance.

The catches: the daily refresh starts with your first generation of the day and unused credits do not carry over. During peak hours (roughly 2 PM to 5 PM UTC) Google may block video generation for free users. Upscaling to 1080p is for subscribers only. You must be 18 or older and in a supported country.

Every Flow output carries an invisible SynthID watermark. A visible watermark is added automatically for users in India, South Korea and Vietnam, and Flow has a "Visible watermarking" toggle under your profile picture.

Microsoft's Video Creator lives inside the free Bing app for Android and iPhone.

• 10 free fast creations. After that, videos are made at standard speed, which Microsoft says takes "approximately several hours per video".
• 8-second clips in vertical 9:16 or horizontal 16:9.
• Mobile only. Bing's help page says video creation is currently available only on mobile.

If you collect Microsoft Rewards points, you can turn them on for Video Creator to get more fast videos. It is the easiest zero-cost way to make a few clips without learning a new app, but the slow queue is slow.

If you make Shorts, you may already have a free AI video generator. YouTube says it has integrated Google DeepMind's Veo 3 Fast into Shorts so you can "create video backgrounds or clips with sound, for free."

The clips are made for Shorts, so this is not the tool for a client video or a long edit. YouTube has not published a clip limit, resolution or country list for it, so check the Shorts camera in your app to see if you have it.

Pair it with YouTube's free editor if you want to cut AI clips together with your own footage. Our CapCut alternatives list covers YouTube Create and other free editors.

Meta's assistant app has a short-video feed called Vibes, and you can make your own AI videos for it. Meta's help center says you can create a video by animating a generated image, uploading your own image, or editing a video, and you can add lip sync or a voiceover.

The app is free to download and lists in-app purchases, but Meta does not publish a free video limit. It is built for sharing: finished videos post to the Vibes feed. Meta also says the Meta AI and Vibes apps are not yet available everywhere.

Firefly is the safest pick if the video is going into paid work. Adobe says outputs from its own Firefly models are safe for commercial use, because they are trained on licensed content. Firefly also offers partner models from Google, OpenAI, Luma and Runway, and for those Adobe says you are responsible for checking the output is right for your project.

Adobe's plans page says: "You don't need a plan to get free daily generations across image, video, and audio," and the limits refresh every day. Adobe does not publish the exact number. Adobe attaches Content Credentials (a tag that marks the file as AI-made) to what you create.

The cheapest upgrade is Firefly Mobile at $4.99 a month in the US App Store. Credits are shared between the web app, the mobile app and Adobe's desktop apps.

Kling is known for realistic motion, and it makes longer clips than most rivals. Its store listing says it can generate up to 15 seconds in native 1080p or 4K, and the Video Extension tool stretches a video to as long as 3 minutes.

A free account can try it, but Kling does not state its free allowance on its store listings, and we could not confirm the current amount on an official page. Check the credit balance in your account after you sign up. In the US App Store, the Standard plan is $10 a month and credit packs start at 330 credits for $5.

Runway puts several top models in one place. Its app lists Seedance 2.5, Kling 3 Pro, Runway's own Gen-4.5, and Google's Nano Banana image models, plus Runway Agent, which plans and assembles a whole video from a conversation.

The free plan is a test drive, not a monthly allowance:

• 125 credits, one time. They never expire, but they never refill either.
• Watermark. Runway's help center says every video made on the free plan carries a Runway watermark.
• 5GB of asset storage.

Standard costs $12 a month billed yearly ($15 month to month) on the web, or $14.99 a month in the iOS app.

In the Gemini app you just type what you want to see. Video now runs on Google's Gemini Omni model, which Google says replaced Veo in the app. It is not free: the App Store listing says video is for Google AI Plus, Pro, Ultra and Workspace users.

Google AI Plus is the cheapest way in at $4.99 a month in the US, and it also gives you 400GB of storage, higher Gemini limits and 200 Flow credits a month. Google AI Pro ($19.99 a month) raises that to 1,000 Flow credits and 5TB of storage.

Since the same subscription unlocks Flow, most people who pay should do the serious work in Flow and use Gemini for quick ideas.

CapCut is an editor first, and that is its strength here. Its AI video generator uses ByteDance's Seedance 2.5 model, and the clips land right next to captions, music, transitions and the rest of a full editor.

CapCut's own page offers a 7-day free trial of the AI video generator and says credits, export resolution and features depend on your plan and region. It hosts Seedance 2.5 on the web and desktop apps. In the US App Store, CapCut Standard is $9.99 a month and Pro is $19.99 a month.

If CapCut's pricing or terms put you off, see our free CapCut alternatives.

Pika is about fun, not film. Its effects melt, squish, explode or "cake-ify" a photo, swap things in and out of your videos, and turn a selfie into a reaction GIF.

Be clear on the price before you sign up. Pika's free plan now includes zero monthly credits: you buy credit packs to generate. Free-plan videos have no watermark, but they come with no commercial licence. Starter is $10 a month, or $8 a month billed yearly. The iPhone app sells weekly plans, starting at $8.99 a week for Standard, so the yearly web plan is much cheaper.