Images and videos via API almost for free

What you'll see in this lesson

1. How an image and a second of video are billed

   Through the API, images are paid per unit based on resolution and quality, and videos per second generated.

2. What each image costs today

   A good 1K image costs between 1 and 4 US cents; top-quality ones, between 13 and 26 cents.

3. Nano Banana 2.1 and the Lite version

   There's no «2.1 Lite»: the Lite is Nano Banana 2 Lite, and today it costs the same per image as Nano Banana 2.1.

4. What each second of video costs

   A second of video with audio ranges from 5 US cents with Veo 3.1 Lite to 40 cents with Veo 3.1 at 1080p.

5. Free quotas: which ones are real

   Almost nothing is free in the API: Nano Banana and Veo have no free tier at Google. The free stuff is in apps and local.

6. Batches: images at half price

   Google and OpenAI charge half for images if you request them in a batch and accept waiting a few hours.

7. fal and Replicate: many models, one account

   Aggregators give you Kling, Veo, FLUX, Seedance or Wan with one key and one bill, but they're not always the cheapest.

8. The recipe for spending almost nothing

   Test cheap, choose, and only then generate the final version with the expensive model: you pay for high quality just once.

9. Summary

   Images for cents, video for cents per second: the savings come from testing cheap, using batches and comparing prices.