Wan 3.0 Ranks #1 in AI Video at $12 a Minute. Veo 3.1 Ranks #21 at $24.

If you pick an AI video model by its price, you are not picking it by its quality. On the Artificial Analysis text-to-video leaderboard, read on October 25, 2026, the most expensive model in the top ten costs 14 times as much as a model ranked two places above it. Google’s Veo 3.1, the name most marketers know, sits in 21st place at twice the price of the leader.

What does the AI video leaderboard measure?

The board is AA-Video-T2V v2.1. It ranks models on making video with audio from a text prompt, by Elo scores computed from pairwise human preference votes: people compare two clips and pick the one they prefer. The leader, Wan 3.0, has 6,372 samples behind its score.

Two details matter for reading it. Every score carries a 95% interval of ±14 to ±19 points, and the page shows the range of ranks each model could hold. Kling 3.0 1080p (Pro) is the anchor, fixed at 1,000, so a score says how much better or worse a model does than Kling 3.0. The price column is the cost of one minute of 1080p video on the model creator’s own API, at default settings.

Which AI video models rank highest in October 2026?

Does a higher price buy a better AI video?

Not at the top of the board. Six of the top seven have an API price, and those six run from $2.40 to $34.12 a minute. Seedance 2.5 is the most expensive model on the whole board at $34.12, and MiniMax H3 (768p) ties it on score, 1,158 against 1,158, for $4.80: about a seventh of the price.

Some of the cheap prices will not last. FLUX 3 Max (720p) shows $2.55 because fal runs it at 75% off from October 15 to November 7, 2026. After that its 720p price returns to $0.17 a second, which is $10.20 a minute by our arithmetic.

• Cheapest in the top ten: HeyGen Video 1 at $2.40, FLUX 3 Max at $2.55 while its promotion lasts, then MiniMax H3 at $4.80.
• Most expensive in the top ten: Seedance 2.5 at $34.12, then Seedance 2.0 at $22.45.
• New this month: HeyGen Video 1 and FLUX 3 Max, both released in October 2026. The board added 9 models in the last 30 days.

Why does Veo 3.1 rank only 21st?

The board does not say why, but one pattern stands out: Veo 3.1 came out in January 2026, and all seven models above 1,150 came out in July 2026 or later. It now scores 963, 212 points below Wan 3.0 and 37 below the Kling 3.0 anchor, at $24.00 a minute. Its cheaper versions sit right behind it: Veo 3.1 Fast 22nd at $7.20 and Veo 3.1 Lite 23rd at $4.80.

Google is also moving developers off it. The Gemini API docs say the Veo 3.1 Preview models were shut down there on October 22, 2026, and point to Gemini Omni Flash 1.1 or to the generally available models on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Omni Flash 1.1 ranks 10th at $9.12 a minute.

If you came here for a Sora alternative: OpenAI removed its Videos API and the sora-2 and sora-2-pro models on September 24, 2026, and its deprecations page lists no replacement. Sora is not among the 30 models on the board.

Where does Kling 4.0 fit?

Nowhere yet. Kuaishou says Kling 4.0 launched on October 15, 2026, with clips of up to 30 seconds in a single pass and up to 15 reference assets and 10 keyframes. It has no score on the board so far. On fal it costs $0.157 a second at 720p and $0.235 at 1080p, which is $14.10 for a minute of 1080p by our arithmetic, against $10.08 for Kling 3.0 Pro.

Same prompt: the #1 model against the free-plan model

Scores are averages over thousands of prompts, so we ran one prompt of the kind social teams post every day: a latte pour, which tests liquid, light and hands. Both clips are vertical 9:16 for Reels and TikTok, not edited beyond compression for the web, and play without sound here.

What we see: in the Wan 3.0 clip the leaf forms while the milk goes in, the hands and pitcher stay consistent, and the camera moves closer as the prompt asks. In the Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite clip the leaf is already on the coffee in the first frame and barely changes, and the stream comes from the underside of the pitcher instead of its spout. For a quick draft of framing and light, the cheap clip does its job; for a post, the difference shows.

What this means if you make videos for social

1. Shortlist from the top eight, then choose on price, length and inputs. The ranking cannot tell them apart; your budget and your brief can.
2. Draft on a cheap model, finish on a top one. Test a prompt on Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite or Gemini Omni Flash, then make the final cut on Wan 3.0 or MiniMax H3.
3. Pay for Seedance 2.5 when you need its inputs, such as up to 12 reference images, or clips of up to 30 seconds, not for the score alone. See Seedance 2.5 vs Veo 3.1.
4. Check promotions before you commit a budget. FLUX 3 Max is a top-six model at a quarter of its price until November 7.
5. Re-check every month. Nine models joined the board in 30 days, and Kling 4.0 is still to come.

On Plus billed yearly, $564 a year for 1,200 credits a month, a credit costs about 3.9 cents, so the Wan 3.0 clip above comes to about $2.76. New accounts get free credits for the fast models; see the free AI video generator page for what they make.