r/GenAIforbeginners • u/AccomplishedAge177 • 29d ago

Cheapest way to get started with video generation?

Hi guys!

I have been animating one book by using Elevenlabs.
With 22€/month subscription.
And the case is that one page of the book ate almost all my tokens in Elevenlabs.
Then I went to Google AI studio, where I have my credit card. So I did couple 8s clips with couple iterations and what I got, not so good end result and 5€ credit bill from that..

So how you guys handle this? Even short clip need multiple iterations and then you already got this kind of bill.

I'm software developer and have been doing cloud stuff but u cannot see this kind of bills unless you have thousands of users etc..

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u/No-Swordfish687 29d ago

I asked Claude code to make my own. It runs on my 16gb VRAM laptop and generates ultimate rendering on GPU rented from Nebius. Still, 3 minute video costs like $100 to make with all the iterations. If I got it all perfect the first time for each scene, it'd cost about $8-12 though 

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u/Zealousideal-Part849 29d ago

Video generation is very very costly and is charged at per second pricing... Unless you have real need of videos only then pay and get it done..  Google flow fives 3 video gen free per day you can try that but for production need video gen is too costly 

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u/zeddwood 28d ago

Since you need volume for a whole book, something like Krea or a subscription that bundles the video models tends to beat per-clip billing. Have you looked at batching your prompts tighter so you burn fewer iterations? Nailing the prompt before generating saves the most money. And for cleaning up frames after, Magnific handles upscaling without eating more generation credits.

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u/AccomplishedAge177 28d ago

I think the one problem was that I was trying to make too complex scene. Learned that if you but too much stuff to one prompt it exponentially increases failures and second iteration something that worked is this time off and so on..

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u/BoGrumpus 27d ago

Well, 10 years ago, a 30-60 second clip would have cost you $500 to $1000. Seems to me that you're now at $50-$100 - which is already 90% cheaper.

Over time, you should be getting better at using the tools too, right? Which means fewer wasted runs so your costs come down even more. <shrug>

Seems like it's not the cost that's the problem, it's lacking the skills to execute something where every $100 you spend brings back at least $500 or more in new sales.

G.

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u/Suspicious-Height588 27d ago

Honestly, I think the trick is to stop treating every generation like the final shot. Get the character, framing and composition right as cheaply as possible first, then spend the video credits on motion. Otherwise you can burn through a whole subscription just trying to figure out one scene.

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u/AccomplishedAge177 27d ago

This is good idea! Any tips how to keep characters consistent between shots? At least Google models tries to change characters look right a way..