What does your money actually buy?
Creative-AI subscriptions run $8–$120 a month, and what they hand back expires monthly. The same money on FairStack buys metered generations across 113 models. Images at $0.0048, video at $0.036/second, voice at $0.018 per 1,000 characters, each billed per use with a flat 20% platform fee. Your balance never expires. Below: the five biggest plans, priced out, next to what the identical dollars buy here.
The exact models those subscriptions are built on — here, priced per use
These are the exact models everyone wants. On FairStack you pay only for what you generate — model cost plus a flat 20%. No subscription.
- Z-Image Turbo $0.0048/image
- Seedream 5.0 Lite $0.033/image
- Seedream 4.5 $0.039/image
- Nano Banana 2 Lite $0.04032/image
- Seedream 5.0 Pro $0.042/image
- Nano Banana 2 $0.048/image
- GPT Image 2 $0.072/image
- Nano Banana Pro $0.1608/image
- Seedance 2.0 Mini $0.036/s (480p)
- Seedance 2.0 Fast $0.054/s (480p)
- Veo 3.1 Lite $0.06/s
- Seedance 2.0 $0.069/s (480p)
- Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro $0.084/s
- WAN 2.6 $0.084/s (720p)
- Kling 3.0 Pro $0.162/s
Cost + 20%, nothing more. Prices come straight from the live catalog — if a model is renamed or repriced, this page rebuilds; it cannot ship a stale number.
What do the five subscriptions give you per month?
Entry and creator tiers — the plans these platforms actually advertise. The right-hand column runs the same money through FairStack's live catalog at today's per-generation prices.
| Platform · plan | Price | What you get | The same money on FairStack |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artlist Max, entry tier | $39.99/mo annual billing | 7,500 AI credits — roughly 75 images or 25 five-second clips¹. Plus unlimited stock music, SFX, and footage. | 1,025 Seedream 4.5 images — or 66 five-second Kling 3.0 Standard clips, or 21 minutes of Hailuo 2.3 Fast I2V video |
| ElevenLabs Creator | $22/mo $18.33 annual | 121,000 credits ≈ 121 minutes of text-to-speech. | About 20 hours of Fish Audio S2.1 Pro text-to-speech (1.22M characters) |
| Midjourney Basic | $10/mo $8 annual | 3.3 fast GPU hours ≈ 200 images. No relax mode — a hard monthly cap. | 2,083 Z-Image Turbo images — or 256 Seedream 4.5, or 138 GPT Image 2 |
| Runway Standard | $15/mo $12 annual | 625 credits ≈ 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 video. | 125 seconds of Sora 2 — or 8 minutes of Hailuo 2.3 Fast I2V |
| Suno Pro | $10/mo $8 annual | 2,500 credits ≈ 500 songs — the best per-song rate in this comparison. | 185 Mureka V9 (Song) songs — or 138 Suno v5 generations |
¹ Artlist's credit-to-output rates are approximate, from third-party documentation — Artlist does not publish a per-generation price list. All competitor figures verified August 7, 2026; ElevenLabs, Runway, and Suno read directly from their official pricing pages. FairStack figures are computed from our live catalog at build time.
Where does the unused money go?
It disappears. On every platform above, allowance you don't use is revenue they keep. Use 30% of your plan in a slow month and your effective per-unit price triples — that's the subscription business model working as designed.
AI credits reset every month. No rollover. Gone if you cancel.
Rollover capped at 3× your monthly quota, two months max. Gone on cancel or downgrade.
Fast GPU hours expire monthly — even on annual plans.
Standard and Pro credits reset on your billing date. Only Max carries one month.
Subscription credits do not carry month to month.
Nothing expires. Credits you top up are yours until you use them — no monthly resets. A month you don't generate is a month you don't pay.
The per-unit math, one modality at a time
How much does a second of AI video cost?
On Runway's entry plan, $0.288 per second of Gen-4.5 — the priciest way to buy video in this comparison. Runway's own API sells the same model at $0.12/second. On FairStack, Sora 2 and Kling 3.0 Standard are $0.12/second and Hailuo 2.3 Fast I2V is $0.031/second.
| Way to buy it | Per second | Per minute of output |
|---|---|---|
| Runway Standard plan (Gen-4.5) | $0.288 | $17.28 |
| Runway Max plan (Gen-4.5, best rate) | $0.096–0.12 | $5.76–7.20 |
| Artlist Max entry tier (≈300 credits per generation¹) | ≈$0.32 | ≈$19.20 |
| FairStack — Hailuo 2.3 Fast I2V | $0.031 | $1.87 |
| FairStack — Kling 3.0 Standard | $0.12 | $7.20 |
| FairStack — Sora 2 | $0.12 | $7.20 |
| FairStack — Veo 3.1 Fast I2V | $0.18 | $10.80 |
"I'm paying $35 a month for the Pro tools, and after trying to create one short video clip using four images, I've already used all my credits due to constant errors… I've now run out of credits without even completing the project I started." — 1★ App Store review of Runway, 2026
Honest note: Runway's editor is genuinely good. If you live inside its timeline all day, the subscription can earn its keep. If what you're buying is seconds of finished video, the entry tier is the worst rate on this page.
How many minutes of voice does $22 buy?
At ElevenLabs Creator, 121 minutes. The same $22 on FairStack buys about 20 hours of Fish Audio S2.1 Pro — roughly ten times the audio, at $0.018 per 1,000 characters (about a minute of speech).
| Way to buy it | Per 1,000 chars (≈1 min) |
|---|---|
| ElevenLabs Creator plan, effective | $0.182 |
| ElevenLabs own API (Multilingual) | $0.10 |
| FairStack — Fish Audio S2.1 Pro | $0.018 |
| FairStack — Qwen3-TTS 1.7B | $0.108 |
| FairStack — ElevenLabs TTS Turbo 2.5 | $0.108 |
| FairStack — ElevenLabs TTS Multilingual V2 | $0.216 |
Full transparency: ElevenLabs' own models cost more per character through FairStack than through ElevenLabs' API — that row is in the table. Our case isn't reselling ElevenLabs lower-priced. It's that Fish Audio S2.1 Pro at a tenth of the price covers most narration work, and it sits on the same balance as your video, images, and music.
Is Midjourney actually expensive?
At volume — no. Midjourney Standard ($24/month annual) includes unlimited relax-mode generation, which makes each additional image effectively free. We'd rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. The catch is everything around it: Basic's hard 200-image cap, one model, one style universe, no API, and hours that expire monthly even on annual plans.
Then a hard stop — no relax mode on Basic. Overage runs $4 per fast GPU hour.
on Z-Image Turbo ($0.0048/image) — or 333 on FLUX.2, 256 on Seedream 4.5, 138 on GPT Image 2. Pick per prompt.
"Does Anyone Understand Midjourney's Pricing!!?!?!" — thread title, r/midjourney
What's the real price of an AI song?
Credit where due: Suno Pro works out to about $0.02 a song in-plan — lower-priced per song than FairStack's $0.054 (Mureka V9 (Song)) or $0.072 (Suno v5 metered) — if you make music every single month. Their fans are right about the price. The difference is what happens the month you don't: Suno's credits lapse, ours don't exist until you generate.
"500 songs for $8 is so good!!" — 5★ App Store review of Suno. We're not going to pretend that's a bad deal.
And if what you actually need is licensed background music rather than generated songs — Artlist's Music & SFX plans and Epidemic Sound are unlimited-download human catalogs. Different product. Honest answer: for pure stock, use them.
What does running all five cost?
A creator producing video, voice, images, and music on separate subscriptions pays for five plans, five accounts, and five expiring quotas — whether or not they ship anything that month.
- Artlist Max (entry tier) $39.99/mo
- ElevenLabs Creator $18.33/mo
- Midjourney Standard $24.00/mo
- Runway Standard $12.00/mo
- Suno Pro $8.00/mo
$1,228 a year, before overages — and unused allowance on every one of them expires.
- 100 images (Seedream 4.5) $3.90
- 10 5-second video clips (Kling 3.0 Standard) $6.00
- 60 minutes of narration (Fish Audio S2.1 Pro) $1.08
- 10 songs (Mureka V9 (Song)) $0.54
- 100 seconds of sound effects $0.14
Your mix will differ — run your own numbers in the calculator. A month you ship nothing costs $0. The stack still bills $102.
When the subscription actually wins
We believe in honesty. Here's where they have an edge — genuinely.
- Midjourney at volume. Standard's unlimited relax mode makes marginal images free. If you generate hundreds of images a month and love the Midjourney look, $24/month annual is hard to beat.
- Artlist for licensed stock. Unlimited human-made music, SFX, and footage under one license is a real product FairStack doesn't offer. If stock is your staple, Artlist earns its fee.
- ElevenLabs for voice cloning and streaming. Their cloning fidelity and real-time streaming stack remain the reference. For character-true voice work at scale, they're the specialist.
- Suno for heavy monthly music. $0.02 a song in-plan is the best per-song rate anywhere, and Suno's vocals are more polished than most open alternatives. Making music every month? Their sub is fair value.
Questions people actually ask
How does FairStack pricing compare to Artlist for AI generation? +
For AI generation, substantially — Artlist Max's entry tier is $39.99/month for 7,500 credits, roughly 75 images. The same $39.99 on FairStack buys about 1,025 Seedream images or 66 five-second video clips. But Artlist also includes unlimited human-made stock music, SFX, and footage — FairStack doesn't do stock. If licensed stock is what you actually use, keep Artlist.
What happens to unused credits on Artlist, Runway, ElevenLabs, Midjourney, and Suno? +
They expire. Artlist credits reset monthly with no rollover. Runway Standard and Pro credits vanish on the billing date. Midjourney fast hours expire even on annual plans. Suno credits don't carry over. ElevenLabs caps rollover at three months' quota. FairStack deposits never expire.
Is Midjourney priced below FairStack? +
At high volume, often yes. Midjourney Standard ($24/month annual) includes unlimited relax-mode images, so heavy users pay effectively nothing per marginal image. FairStack wins when you want multiple models, an API, video, voice, and music on one balance — or when you generate less than every month.
Do FairStack credits expire? +
Never. Credits you top up are yours until you use them. No monthly resets, no billing-cycle expiry, no minimum spend. If you generate nothing this month, you pay nothing this month.
Can I use the same models — Kling, Sora, Veo, Suno, ElevenLabs — on FairStack? +
Yes. FairStack meters 113 models across image, video, voice, and music — including Kling 3.0, Sora 2, Veo 3.1, Suno v5, ElevenLabs voices, Seedream, FLUX, and GPT Image 2 — on one prepaid balance, priced per generation.
How is FairStack's price set? +
Provider cost × 1.20. We publish the formula: every model's price is its raw infrastructure cost plus a flat 20% platform margin — the same rate for everyone, on the web app and the API. No tiers, no gating, no expiring allowances.
Run your own numbers.
$5 is enough to test every modality — that's 128 images, or 41 seconds of Kling 3.0 Standard video, or 92 songs. No subscription. Never expires.
Artlist, ElevenLabs, Midjourney, Runway, Suno, and Epidemic Sound are trademarks of their respective owners. FairStack is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of them. Competitor pricing verified August 7, 2026 — ElevenLabs, Runway, and Suno from their official pricing pages; Artlist and Midjourney from dated third-party sources, as their sites block automated verification; Artlist credit-to-output rates are approximate. Prices and plans change — check the linked sources for current figures. FairStack prices on this page are generated from our live model catalog at build time.