Hailuo API Pricing: MiniMax Hailuo Key and Cost Per Clip

Pricing a Hailuo integration looks simple until you try to forecast the bill. MiniMax quotes a price per clip, other hosts quote per second, and the lineup changed this summer when MiniMax released H3 and moved Hailuo 2.3 and Hailuo 02 to a legacy list. A 6-second 768P clip on Hailuo 2.3 costs $0.28 on MiniMax's pay-as-you-go plan. A 10-second clip costs $0.56. A 1080P clip costs $0.49 and cannot run longer than 6 seconds. This article lays out every price I could verify, the math at 10, 100 and 1,000 clips, and the exact steps to send a first request with your own access token.

What the Hailuo API Actually Is

Hailuo is MiniMax's video model family, and the MiniMax developer platform is the official way to call it over HTTP. You create an account, add credit, generate an API token, and send a prompt to one endpoint. The service is asynchronous: the request returns a task ID, and you poll until the finished MP4 is ready. Billing is pay as you go, so you pay per clip instead of a monthly seat.

MiniMax's Own Platform

On platform.minimax.io, prices are listed per model, resolution, and duration, so you can budget without any token math. Once you know which model and resolution you need, the table in the next section holds the only numbers you need before writing a line of code.

Third-Party Hosts

Hosts such as fal and Replicate resell the same models behind their own accounts and billing. fal's model pages quote the same figures as MiniMax: $0.28 per 6-second clip and $0.56 per 10-second clip for Hailuo 2.3 at 768p, and $0.49 for the Pro 1080p version. Replicate's model page lists text and image input, 6 or 10 second clips, and 768p or 1080p output, with 1080p limited to 6 seconds. I could not confirm a current Replicate price from that page, so check it before you budget around it.

The H3 Shift

MiniMax released H3, also called Hailuo 3.0, to the public on July 31, 2026. Its pay-as-you-go page now lists Hailuo 2.3, Hailuo 2.3 Fast, and Hailuo 02 under a Legacy Models heading, and the H3 family sits above them as the current lineup. Legacy models still show prices, but the label is a warning. Build your integration so the model name is a config value, not a string buried in ten files.

Hailuo API Pricing, Model by Model

Here is the MiniMax price list for the Hailuo family, with a per-second figure added so you can compare against hosts that bill by the second.

💡 Two limits shape every budget. 10-second clips exist only at 768P, and 1080P is capped at 6 seconds. No model in the Hailuo family gives you a long 1080P shot in a single call.

Reading the Price Table

• Fast is about a third cheaper. Hailuo 2.3 Fast costs $0.19 against $0.28 at 768P for 6 seconds, and $0.33 against $0.49 at 1080P. Replicate's model page says the Fast variant takes an image as input, so plan a still-image step before it.
• 10-second clips cost more per second. The standard model charges $0.056 per second for a 10-second render versus $0.047 for a 6-second one. If your edit only needs 5 seconds, ask for 6.
• 1080P adds roughly 75 percent. $0.49 is 1.75 times $0.28 for the same 6 seconds.
• Fast bills flat per second at 768P. About $0.032 whether you ask for 6 or 10 seconds.
• 512P is the cheapest tier. The $0.10 to $0.15 clips from Hailuo 02 suit throwaway drafts, and Hailuo 02 Fast is built around that quick, low resolution workflow.

Which Tier for Which Job

• Storyboards and animatics: 512P on Hailuo 02 at $0.10 a clip. You are checking motion and timing here, not fine detail.
• Social posts and ads: 768P, 6 seconds, on Hailuo 2.3 or its Fast sibling. This is the sweet spot of price and quality.
• Hero shots for a landing page: 1080P at $0.49, 6 seconds, then trim in the edit.
• Anything with dialogue or sound design: H3, because the audio is generated together with the picture.
• Shots longer than 10 seconds: stitch several generations in the edit. Three 10-second clips at 768P cost $1.68 for 30 seconds of footage.

Where H3 Fits In

MiniMax bills its H3 models per second, not per clip. The official list shows these rates:

H3 produces native 2K video at 24 fps, in clips from 5 to 15 seconds, with synchronized audio generated in the same pass. Put it next to Hailuo 2.3 at equal lengths and the gap is easy to see:

At 768P, H3 costs between 1.4 and 1.7 times as much as the older model for the same clip length. You are paying for audio and a higher resolution ceiling, not for the same output at a higher price. My rule of thumb: draft on the cheaper Hailuo tiers while they are still sold, and spend H3 money on finals that need sound or 2K.

What Real Projects Cost

Per-clip prices only become real when you multiply them. The totals below assume 6-second clips and that every generation is a keeper, which never happens.

Ten Clips for a Pitch

A client pitch with ten short scenes costs $2.80 at 768P on Hailuo 2.3, $1.90 on Fast, and $4.90 at 1080P. At this scale the bill is a rounding error. Spend your attention on prompts, not on pricing.

One Hundred Social Clips

A month of daily short-form posts with a few spares lands around 100 clips: $28 at 768P, $19 on Fast, $49 at 1080P.

A small shop animating product photos is the typical buyer here. The numbers stay friendly, but retakes add up. If you keep one clip in three, which is an assumption you should replace with your own ratio, multiply the totals by three: about $84 at 768P.

A Thousand Product Videos

A catalog of 1,000 clips is where model choice starts to matter.

Choosing 1080P over 768P on a thousand clips costs an extra $210. Choosing Fast over standard saves $90. Both are small next to the cost of an editor's time.

Costs Beyond the Clip

The invoice from the video provider is not the whole bill:

• Retakes. Every discarded generation was still billed at the clip price, unless the provider says otherwise for failed tasks. Check how MiniMax treats a task that errors out.
• Storage and delivery. A finished MP4 has to live somewhere. Download it and move it to your own bucket instead of depending on a temporary link.
• Engineering time. Polling, retries, and a queue that respects rate limits take days, not hours, in a production system.

Setting Up Your First Request

Account and Token

1. Create an account on platform.minimax.io.
2. Add credit. The platform is pay as you go, so start with a small amount while you test.
3. Generate an API token in the account management area and store it in an environment variable. Never ship it in client-side code or commit it to a repository.

The Request Itself

Video generation is a single POST to https://api.minimax.io/v1/video_generation, authenticated with a Bearer header. The body takes these fields:

• model: MiniMax-Hailuo-2.3, MiniMax-Hailuo-02, T2V-01-Director, or T2V-01
• prompt: your scene description, up to 2000 characters
• duration: seconds, 6 by default, with limits that depend on the model and resolution
• resolution: 720P, 768P, or 1080P, with a default that depends on the model
• prompt_optimizer: true by default
• fast_pretreatment: false by default
• callback_url: an address MiniMax can call with status updates

curl -X POST "https://api.minimax.io/v1/video_generation" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MINIMAX_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "MiniMax-Hailuo-2.3",
    "prompt": "Slow dolly in on a ceramic mug beside a rainy window, steam curling upward",
    "duration": 6,
    "resolution": "768P"
  }'

Copy Prompt

The response returns a task_id and a base_resp object. A status code of 0 means success, 1002 means you hit a rate limit, and 1004 means authentication failed. Take the task_id, poll the task query endpoint described in the MiniMax reference until the clip is ready, then download the file.

Cap Your Spend

• Log every task. Store the task_id, model, resolution and duration next to each job so you can match the invoice to your code.
• Test cheap first. Run prompts at 768P and 6 seconds, then re-run only the winners at 1080P.
• Set a retry ceiling. A loop that retries a failing prompt forever bills you forever.
• Keep the model name in config. With Hailuo 2.3 on the legacy list, a one-line change should be all it takes to move to H3.
• Top up in small amounts until your real keep rate is known.

Trying Hailuo Without an API Bill

Before you wire up billing, you can judge the motion quality in a browser. PicassoIA hosts several MiniMax models, so you can compare prompts side by side without writing code.

How to Use Hailuo 2.3 on PicassoIA

1. Open Hailuo 2.3 on PicassoIA.
2. Write a prompt that names the subject, the action, and a camera move, such as "slow dolly in on a market stall at dawn, steam rising from a pot".
3. Pick a duration of 6 or 10 seconds. 10 seconds is only available at 768p.
4. Pick a resolution: 768p is the default, and 1080p supports only 6-second clips.
5. Leave the prompt optimizer on, since it is enabled by default and refines motion and framing.
6. Optionally upload a first frame image. The finished video keeps the aspect ratio of that image.
7. Run it. Example runs on the model page took roughly 95 to 170 seconds.

Parameter Tips

• Start at 768p and 6 seconds. It mirrors the cheapest standard tier on the API, so your tests predict your production bill.
• Anchor the opening with a still. Generate a clean photo first, then animate it as the first frame when you need the scene to start exactly as planned.
• Write camera language. Words like dolly, handheld, and aerial change the result more than extra adjectives.
• Switch the optimizer off only when you have written a precise shot list and want the model to follow it literally.

Other MiniMax Models on PicassoIA

• Hailuo 2.3 Fast animates photos into short clips.
• Hailuo 02 targets 1080p output.
• Hailuo 02 Fast is the instant, 512p option.
• Video 01 makes 6-second clips from a prompt.
• Video 01 Director adds control over camera movement.

Other Video Models Worth Comparing

Hailuo is not the only way to get short clips from an API or a browser. These models are on PicassoIA, and each page shows the current options, so check there for what a run costs on your plan.

If your project can live with one of the free options, the cheapest API call is the one you never make. If you need Hailuo's look specifically, use the tables above to size the budget and keep the model name configurable.

Run Your Own Test Clips

Numbers on a page only go so far. The fastest way to decide whether Hailuo is worth its per-clip price is to generate a few scenes of your own and judge the motion yourself. Open Hailuo 2.3 on PicassoIA, try the same prompt at 768p and 1080p, then run it again on Hailuo 2.3 Fast and compare the results. When you know which tier matches your quality bar, you can size your API budget with real numbers instead of guesses.

PicassoIA also offers image generation, so you can create the first-frame still and the finished video in one place. Pick a scene from your own project, write the prompt, and see what it looks like.