Hailuo AI Pricing in 2026: What a Credit Actually Buys

The confusing thing about Hailuo AI pricing is that the tier you pick barely tells you how much video you get. Hailuo sells credits, credits are spent per generation, and the same credit buys wildly different amounts of finished footage depending on the resolution and length you asked for. So the honest way to compare plans is to stop reading the price and start counting seconds.

I generate short-form video every single day for two brands, so I have opinions about which of these tools bill fairly. Hailuo is one of the better-value ones — but only if you understand two things the pricing page does not put in large type.

The tiers, and what they actually are

Hailuo (MiniMax) runs a free tier plus a ladder of paid tiers topping out around $199.99 a month. Prices below are the figures published in third-party breakdowns at the time of writing rather than an API response, and Hailuo repositions and discounts often — confirm against Hailuo's own subscription page before you commit to anything.

The Standard price is the one that moves most. It has been listed anywhere between $7.99 and $14.99 across 2025 and 2026 depending on whatever promotion is running, so the number you see on any given day is a snapshot, not a constant.

Credits are not seconds, and that is the whole game

A credit does not buy a fixed amount of video. It buys a generation at whatever settings you chose, and those settings swing the cost enormously. Push the resolution up and the same credit balance produces a fraction of the footage. Push the duration up and it drops again.

This is why two people on the identical Standard plan can report completely different value. One is generating short clips at modest resolution and getting dozens of usable pieces a month. The other is generating long clips at maximum resolution and running dry in a week — on the same money.

The practical consequence: decide your output spec first, then work out which tier covers it. Picking the tier first and discovering the spec later is how people end up upgrading twice in a month.

The trap: credits do not roll over

Hailuo credits reset each month and unused ones are gone. That sounds minor until you look at how creative work actually happens — in bursts. You have a heavy week when a campaign needs eight variants, then two quiet weeks, then another burst.

On a rollover model, the quiet weeks bank capacity for the busy ones. On a reset model they are simply wasted. So the tier you need is not the one that matches your average month, it is the one that covers your heaviest week — and everything below that ceiling is paid for whether you use it or not.

That single mechanic pushes the honest cost of most people's usage a tier higher than their arithmetic suggested.

Cost per second, which is the only fair comparison

Once you convert a plan into seconds of finished, usable video, three patterns show up consistently across credit-based video tools, Hailuo included:

• The free tier is a demo, not a plan. Watermarked output cannot go on a client's channel or a paid ad at any price, so its effective cost per usable second is infinite.
• The entry paid tier is usually the best rate per second — right up until you exhaust it, at which point the rate becomes meaningless because you have no output left.
• The top tier is rarely cheaper per second. It buys headroom and removes the anxiety of counting, which is worth real money if you publish daily, and nothing at all if you publish weekly.

Billing period matters more than tier-hopping here. Annual billing has been running around 20% off and quarterly promotions have gone as deep as roughly 40%, which is a larger saving than most people achieve by carefully optimising which tier they sit on.

How it compares

Against the avatar-first tools, Hailuo is playing a different game — it generates scenes, not presenters. If what you need is a talking head, the HeyGen and D-ID numbers are the relevant comparison. Against the other scene generators, put it next to Kling, Seedance and Runway — and compare them at a fixed output spec, not at headline price.

There is also a broader write-up of the model itself in our Hailuo AI guide if you want the quality side rather than the billing side.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Hailuo AI cost?

There is a free watermarked tier, an entry paid tier that has been listed between roughly $7.99 and $14.99 a month for about 1,000 credits, mid tiers in the $25–$55 range, and a top tier at $199.99 a month. Confirm current figures on Hailuo's own page — this lineup reprices often.

Is Hailuo AI free?

There is a free tier with a small daily allowance, but the output is watermarked. It is fine for testing the model and unusable for client work or paid ads.

Do Hailuo credits roll over?

No. Credits reset monthly and anything unused is lost, so size your plan against your busiest week rather than your average month.

How many videos do 1,000 credits make?

It depends entirely on resolution and clip length — that is the point of the credit system. At modest settings it stretches a long way; at maximum resolution and duration it disappears quickly. Fix your output spec before you compare plans.

Is the $199.99 tier worth it?

Only if you publish close to daily. It buys headroom rather than a better rate per second, so for weekly output the mid tiers are almost always better value.

What is the cheapest way to pay for Hailuo?

Longer billing periods. Annual has been running near 20% off and quarterly promotions deeper still — usually a bigger saving than moving between tiers.

Looking for something else? Browse all 76 AI video guides in one list.

Weighing the mid-tier models against each other? Vidu AI sits in the same price band and wins on multi-reference character consistency.

If you want a straight answer about which generator to put your money into this month, from people paying these bills every day, come and ask. Join the AI Video Generator community on Skool.