Kling 4 vs Seedance 2.5: Price per Second, Specs and Which to Use

Kling 4.0 costs less per second on the API, and less than half at 1080p

Kling bills Kling 4.0 by the second of video. BytePlus bills Seedance 2.5 by tokens, which grow in step with clip length, so its 5-second examples convert to a steady price per second. The table puts both on that basis: list prices, 16:9, no video input. The 10- and 30-second rows are ToolColumn arithmetic, per-second price times clip length.

Read the 1080p rows first: that is where the gap opens, because Seedance 2.5's per-token rate barely rises at 1080p while its token count more than doubles. At 720p the difference on a 10-second clip is under a dollar. Kling's trial pack buys 64 seconds of 720p Kling 4.0, or about 42 seconds at 1080p, and a pack bought for older Kling models cannot be spent on 4.0. Kling 4.0 runs only on Flagship packs: 30-day trial packs of $9 (64 units) and $90 (637 units), and 180-day packs from $500 (3,250 units) to $8,000 (53,640 units).

On both APIs a video input lowers the rate but adds billed volume, so the clip costs more. Kling 4.0 drops to $0.094 a second at 720p and $0.141 at 1080p but bills at least twice the output length: a 5-second 1080p clip with a shorter input bills 10 seconds, $1.41 against $1.175 without one (ToolColumn arithmetic: 10 × $0.141 and 5 × $0.235). Seedance 2.5 adds the input's length to its token count: a 5-second 1080p clip made from a 2 to 30-second input costs $3.062 to $11.907 in BytePlus's examples, against $2.843 without one. Seedance 2.5 bills only successful videos.

In the apps, only Seedance 2.5 has a published credit rate

Dreamina, ByteDance's app, charges 37 credits per second for Seedance 2.5 at 720p. Basic renews at $15 a month for 1,575 credits, which is about 42 seconds of 720p Seedance 2.5, or about $0.35 a second (ToolColumn arithmetic: $15 ÷ 1,575 × 37). That is more than the API's $0.231, so for steady 720p use the BytePlus route costs less once its $30 balance is in. Eligible US accounts pay $0.29 for the first month of Basic, and Dreamina says that offer is neither free nor unlimited.

Kling publishes no credit cost per clip for Kling 4.0, so the generation panel is the only place to see it. Kling's membership page shows a limited-time 10% Kling 4.0 discount on Pro ($32.56 a month, 3,000 credits) and higher plans, but not on Standard ($8.80, 660 credits). Commercial use and watermark-free output need a paid Kling plan.

Higgsfield sells both models for its own credits. Seedance 2.5 is on its Plus plan and above. Kling 4.0 arrived on October 21 with a launch discount, priced only on the Generate button.

Seedance 2.5 takes 50 references; Kling 4.0 takes 10 keyframes and lists 4K

The vendors' spec sheets differ more on inputs than on length. The table lists what each vendor publishes.

Read the reference row as the main difference in how you direct each model. Seedance 2.5 can build a clip from a dozen product shots or drive it from an audio track alone. Kling 4.0 pins the story to up to 10 keyframe images and accepts prompts of up to 8,000 tokens.

Kling's 4K and HDR claims need a date check. Kling's release note lists 4K for Kling 4.0 but calls 10-bit HDR at 1080p and 4K "coming soon". Kuaishou's press release says the model "will also support 4K", and the API offers 720p and 1080p with 10-bit 4K "coming soon". Seedance 2.0, not 2.5, is ByteDance's 4K model; see Seedance 2.5 vs 2.0.

Seedance 2.5 sits 1st in image-to-video; Kling 4.0 is not ranked yet

Neither vendor publishes benchmark numbers; Kuaishou and ByteDance describe smoother motion and more realistic footage in words only. The independent Artificial Analysis leaderboards, in their with-audio view, are the only common yardstick (Artificial Analysis, read October 29, 2026):

• Image-to-video: Seedance 2.5 sits at 1148 Elo, 1st. Kling 3.0 1080p (Pro), the board's fixed anchor, sits at 1000, 13th.
• Text-to-video: Seedance 2.5 sits at 1156 Elo, 5th. Artificial Analysis gives it a likely rank of 2nd to 7th, and Wan 3.0 leads at 1174. Kling 3.0 1080p (Pro) sits at 1000, 18th, and Kling 3.0 Omni at 1020.
• Kling 4.0: not listed on either leaderboard yet, two weeks after its October 15 launch.

Until Kling 4.0 appears there, the arena compares Seedance 2.5 only with Kling 3.0, the model Kling 4.0 replaces at the top of its lineup. Kling 3.0 is still sold, at $0.168 a second at 1080p with native audio on the API.

Kling sells Kling 4.0 itself; ByteDance sells Seedance 2.5 through several apps and BytePlus

• Kling 4.0: in Kling's own studio at kling.ai since October 15. The Kling API added it on October 28, and Kling MCP and CLI connect it to AI agents. 4.0 Flash, the faster 720p version, is in early access on annual Ultra+.
• Seedance 2.5: launched July 31 in ByteDance's Chinese apps, Jimeng AI and Doubao Pro. Outside China it runs in Dreamina, the BytePlus ModelArk API (model dreamina-seedance-2-5-260628) and the BytePlus Playground, and ByteDance's Seedance 2.5 page also links the Dola app.
• Both: Higgsfield, for its own credits. Its only current unlimited Seedance 2.5 offer is on the business Scale plan: 30 days on Scale Annual or 7 days on Scale Monthly, at 720p with clips of up to 25 seconds, after business verification.

For the full cost of each route, see Kling AI credits explained and the pricing notes for Seedance and Kling AI.