Runway
Cloud creative suite for generating and editing AI video, images and audio (Runway's Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0 plus third-party models such as Kling 3.0, Seedance and Nano Banana Pro) on one credit balance.
AI video generationResearched — not yet hand-checkedNot rated — no hands-on test
Sourced facts
- Monthly (US, logged-out): Free $0, Standard $15, Pro $35, Max $95; no tax note on the page — source
- Yearly, per month: Standard $12 (Save $36/year), Pro $28 (Save $84/year), Max $76 (Save $228/year) — source
- Team is $69/seat/month, or $55/seat/month billed annually, for 2-9 members, with 1TB storage, SSO and indemnification; Enterprise is custom — source
- Credits: Standard 625 (listed as 52s of Gen-4.5), Pro 2,250 (187s), Max 9,500 (791s); Gen-4.5 is 60 credits/5s and Aleph 2.0 is 140 credits/5s — source
- No rollover on Standard and Pro; Max rolls over one month of unused credits; purchased credits never expire (1,000 minimum) and upgrades are prorated — source
- Standard has 5 parallel generations and 20GB; Pro has 15 parallel and a voice clone; Max has 20 parallel, HDR, ProRes and 500GB — source
- Free gives 125 one-time credits that never refill, 5GB of storage, and a watermark on every video — source
- After cancelling, purchased credits stay, but features follow your current plan — source
- You keep ownership, with no non-commercial restriction and no credit to Runway required — source
- Terms (15 September 2026): a perpetual licence to train on your inputs and outputs; outputs may not be unique; disputes go to arbitration — source
- Refunds are discretionary, within 30 days and only for unused purchases; a refund downgrades the account to Free — source
- Unlimited ended 1 June 2026 and was replaced by Max (no Explore Mode); legacy plans run until 30 November 2026 — source
- The Usage Policy (6 March 2026) bans unauthorised likeness, IP infringement and imitating a living artist's style — source
Quick facts
- Pricing: US logged-out reference prices from runwayml.com/pricing (read after rendering with headless Chrome): monthly Free $0, Standard $15, Pro $35, Max $95; yearly per month Standard $12 (Save $36/year), Pro $28 (Save $84/year), Max $76 (Save $228/year); Team $69/seat/month or $55/seat/month billed annually for 2-9 members with 1TB storage, SSO and indemnification; Enterprise is custom. The pricing page has no tax note; the Terms say tax is charged when required. Logged-in prices not verified.
- Best for: Creators who need several strong video models and an editing workspace in one place, and who will budget for credits before generating.
- Website: runwayml.com
What it does well
- Commercial use without strings from Standard up: you keep ownership, with no non-commercial restrictions and no credit requirement; Standard removes the watermark and adds 4K upscaling
- Clear credit maths on the pricing page: each plan card turns credits into seconds (625 = 52s of Gen-4.5, 2,250 = 187s, 9,500 = 791s) and per-model rates are listed (Gen-4.5 60 credits/5s, Aleph 2.0 140 credits/5s)
- One credit balance covers Runway's own models and third-party ones (Kling 3.0, Seedance, Nano Banana Pro and more) plus image, music, voice and sound-effects generation
- Flexible credits: free and purchased credits never expire, Max rolls over up to one month of unused credits, upgrades are prorated and immediate, and Max adds HDR, ProRes and image-sequence output
Where it falls short
- Credits go fast: Standard's 625 credits a month equal 52s of Gen-4.5, Aleph 2.0 costs 140 credits/5s, and on Standard and Pro unused monthly credits reset within 24 hours of the billing date
- Free is a one-time test: 125 credits that never refill, limited tools and a watermark on every video. After a downgrade, features follow your current plan even for credits you bought earlier
- Terms trade-offs: Runway gets a perpetual, irrevocable licence to train its AI on your inputs and outputs, outputs may not be unique, and disputes go to binding arbitration unless you opt out. The Usage Policy bans content in the style of a known, living artist
- Refunds are discretionary and only within 30 days for unused or nearly unused purchases; cancelling brings no prorated refund, prices can change at any time, and app-store purchases are refunded through Apple or Google. Unlimited and Explore Mode ended on June 1, 2026
Verdict
What our judgement is based on
Based only on Runway's own pages, fetched logged out on 2026-10-11 with the pricing page rendered in a headless browser: runwayml.com/pricing, help.runwayml.com articles, the Terms of Use (15 September 2026), the Usage Policy (6 March 2026) and the safety pages. help.runwayml.com returned 403 on the first two attempts (Cloudflare) and succeeded on the third using headless Chrome; runwayml.com/usage-policy 404s, so the equivalent official page runway.com/safety/usage-policy was used. The top 3 search results were compared in full text; the third result was Runway's own pricing page, so the comparison moved to the next result (javisreview.com, 2026-09-29). None of that review's figures could be confirmed on Runway's pages, and its 4.4/5 score was ignored under RULE-1. No hands-on testing of output quality, prompt adherence, generation speed or real credit consumption, so the rating is null. Where Runway's own pages disagree (Pro storage listed as 100GB on the pricing page and 500GB in a help article; the yearly discount labelled 'Yearly -20% off' in the server HTML and '2 months free' when rendered), the conflicting figure was left out of the facts rather than picked.