What lean_art costs

Of the three plans we buy the AI for, each one up includes more of it and adds a smaller percentage to credits you buy on top, and the two effects cross right where the next plan’s allowance begins. On Indie, $60.00 of top-ups brings your month to $118.80 and leaves you $70.00of AI — a shade under what Pro costs, for as much AI as Pro includes. A little past there, Pro is cheaper, and it also takes your own keys where Indie does not. Pro and Studio meet the same way, at $220.00 of AI, where the two months cost the same to the penny.

Two things that ladder assumes. Your allowance is a fresh amount each billing month and does not roll over, so a quiet month followed by a busy one costs more on a large plan than the average suggests — credits you buy on top never expire, and that is the way round to lean if your work comes in bursts. And it compares plans on AI bought through us; anything you run on your own key sits outside it entirely.

BYOK sits outside the ladder for exactly that reason. It is priced for people running most of their generation on their own keys, so its allowance is a starter amount rather than a working month. At the founding rate it is the cheapest plan on this page up to about $380 of AI a month, even if you never bring a key — its price is under Indie's. Past there Studio's smaller percentage wins.

The same as one you keep. A model charges for the work, not for the result, so a shot you bin costs what it cost to make — and most shots are binned. The clip counts on the cards are attempts, not keepers: read them as how many times you can press the button, and expect a finished shot to take several of those.

It is the single biggest thing between a plan’s allowance and what a month actually costs, which is why we would rather you saw it here than found it out.

Nothing is added to a generation itself. A credit is a dollar of AI at what the provider charges us, whether it came out of your allowance or out of a top-up. The percentage applies only when you buy more credits: Indie 33% · BYOK 20% · Pro 20% · Studio 10%. Buy $100.00 of AI on Pro and your card is charged $120.00. It covers buying the credit before you spend it, the cost of taking the payment, and putting every provider on one bill instead of several.

The bigger plans charge less of it, but that is not mostly what their higher price buys: of the $80.00 between Indie and Pro, $60.00is more included AI. The cheaper rate comes with it and costs nothing up front — and buys nothing at all if you stay inside your allowance.

Take the included AI out of each fee and the software alone is $29.00 on Indie, $20.00 on BYOK, $49.00 on Pro and $79.00 on Studio. It is the same software on all four. What the larger fees also buy is the lower rate on everything past the allowance, which is why the plan that is cheapest overall depends on how much you generate rather than on which price looks smallest.

Bring your own key and we take nothing from that work at all — which is why that plan is at the top of this page.

The monthly price is for everything that is not the AI: the crew that plans the work, the desk you arrange it on, the timeline, and every project you keep here. Servers, the storage your plan names — 100 GB of it on Indie, 1 TB on Studio— the queue that runs a generation while you’re asleep, and the long work of making a multitude of models behave like one tool you can direct. An AI company sells you a model. We sell you somewhere to use it.

Indie 100 GB · BYOK 150 GB · Pro 500 GB · Studio 1 TB. In 1080p that is roughly 21 hours of footage at the bottom of the ladder and 217 at the top; in 4K, 7 and 73. That is the difference between the two boxes footage is converted to on the way in — 4.6 GB an hour at 1080p and 14 GB an hour at 4K.

We convert it at all because nothing here can use a camera master as it stands: a ProRes or 10-bit reel plays in no browser and reads to no model, so it would cost you room and buy the work nothing. Which of the two boxes is yours to pick, in Settings. No video model we run takes in or hands back more than 1080p, so footage that is only there for the models gains nothing at all from 4K — but a cut that mixes 4K shots with 1080p plates cannot be delivered in 4K, so if that is the finish, bring the frame in.

Footage that already arrives lighter than a copy of it would be is left exactly as it is, and takes only what it takes. Where a copy is made, it is made here, in your browser, and your own original never leaves your machine. Where no browser can play the format at all — ProRes, and the rest of what a camera writes — nothing comes up: a master would fill a plan in minutes to hold a card that plays nowhere, so we ask you for a delivery copy instead and you conform back to the original at the finish.

Nothing counts the hours you bring in over a month, only what is still here at once. It is a shelf for the films you are working on rather than somewhere to park an archive — clear out what one is finished with and the room comes back.

Because points hide the price. Every system that invents its own currency asks you to hold an exchange rate in your head, and nobody can — after a month of it you still have no feel for what a shot costs or what your money is buying. So we did not invent one. A credit here is one dollar of AI at the price the model charges us, and it stays that: no rate that quietly moves, no bundle that is worth less than it looks.

Which is why the figures on this page are dollars, and why you can check them. Your billing page lists every task you have run, in dollars, by model: the clip, the retake, the voice line you binned.

Two limits worth knowing. There is no running cost readout while something is generating — the figure lands when the task finishes. And a small number of calls come back from a provider without a price we can read; those are booked as nothing rather than guessed at.

A generation already sent finishes — we won’t stop a shot mid-render. Nothing new starts after that, and the run writes you a closing note. Finishing what was sent can leave you slightly below zero, which shows as an overage on your billing page and comes off your next top-up.

So your credit balance is the ceiling: with nothing else switched on, the most a month can cost you is the plan fee plus whatever credits you chose to buy. Nothing is charged to your card mid-session unless you ask for it.

Automatic top-ups are how you ask for it: they buy more the moment your balance drops below an amount you choose, and they keep doing it, so switch them on when running dry mid-run would cost you more than the credits would. If the card is declined we will email you and try again next time you run low — until it works, generating stops when your credits run out.

Your monthly allowance is a fresh amount each billing month and doesn’t roll over. Credits you buy on top never expire.

Moving up happens today: the new plan is invoiced in full, you are credited for the days you have already paid for, and a full new allowance starts from that moment — your billing month restarts with it.

Moving down works differently: cancel, and at your renewal date pick the smaller plan. You keep the month you paid for.

Nothing is deleted either way: your films are kept, and credits you bought are still there when you come back. What changes on the way down is the room. A smaller plan holds less, and if what you have kept is over what it holds, all of it is still here to open, work on and export — what stops is adding more, until you are back under.

The first 20 people to take that plan pay $25.00 a month instead of $49.00, and keep that price for as long as they keep the account — it is not an introductory rate that quietly ends. Move up to a larger plan and you pay that plan’s price; come back to this one and the rate is still here.