Pick Pika if
creators who want a clip from a sentence and will buy credits.
Read the Pika pagePika vs Runway
Our take
Pick Pika if creators who want a clip from a sentence and will buy credits. Pick Runway if creators who want text-to-video or timeline edits and will burn credits. Skip Pika if people who need a film-grade 4K membership (Kling AI) or an avatar studio (HeyGen). Skip Runway if people who need a presenter avatar (HeyGen, Synthesia) or speech-only TTS (ElevenLabs).
Pika
hosted text-to-video composer
Best for
Pika A short clip from a prompt
Runway Generate or edit moving pictures
Free plan
Pika $0 · / month. 0 monthly credits (packs only). 2 parallel video gens. No commercial license
Runway $0 · /month. 125 one-time credits that don’t expire (not a monthly refill). 5GB storage. A selection of models to test
Lowest paid
Pika Starter $10/mo yearly
Runway Standard $12/mo yearly
Next step up
Pika Creator $35/mo yearly
Runway Pro $28/mo yearly
Coding agent
Pika
Runway Agent
Runs where
Pika Hosted
Runway Hosted
Watch out
Pika Free has 0 monthly credits
Runway Free is 125 credits once
Last checked
Pika 2026-10-20 · pika.art/pricing
Runway 2026-10-19 · runwayml.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Runway if
creators who want text-to-video or timeline edits and will burn credits.
Read the Runway page