What an AI video ad actually costs in 2026

Why quotes do not compare

Two suppliers can quote the same number and deliver different work, because a video ad quote is really four quotes:

1. Concept and script — who writes the 15 seconds, and how many directions you get to choose from.
2. Generation — model credits, retries, and the cost of the failed takes nobody invoices you for directly.
3. Edit, sound and captions — the part that makes a generated clip look deliberate rather than generated.
4. Revisions — priced per version or per round, and usually the item that decides whether the job is profitable.

If a quote does not break out all four, it cannot be compared with one that does.

The arithmetic you can actually run

For any quote, compute two numbers:

Cost per finished version = total quote ÷ number of approved, ready-to-post versions.

Marginal cost of the next version = (generation + edit) in the quote ÷ versions, with revision rounds held constant.

The second number is the one that matters for a product launch, where you need one concept in three placements and four aspect ratios. If the marginal cost per version is low, the pipeline is doing the work. If it is close to the first-version cost, you are buying craftspeople, not a pipeline — which is fine, but should be priced as craft.

The three costs that get left out

• Iteration time on your side. Every generation round needs a person who can judge whether the hook works. That is a real hourly cost and it lands on the client, not the supplier.
• The quality ceiling. Generated footage fails predictably on hands, text in frame, and consistent product detail across cuts. Budget either a reshoot of the hero product or a design rule that keeps the product out of the generated frames.
• Rights and durability. Check that the model licence covering the output allows commercial use, and that your own asset library is the source of any logo or product shot. A clip you cannot prove you may run is worth zero.

Comparing the three ways to get one

| route | you pay for | the hidden line | |---|---|---| | Agency | concept, production, account management | scope rounds; the third version is a new statement of work | | Freelancer | time and taste | availability; one person is a single point of failure | | Self-run pipeline | credits and your own hours | iteration time, and a learning curve you cannot invoice |

None of these is cheapest in general. The self-run pipeline wins on volume with many versions and a settled visual rule; the agency wins when one hero film must be right; the freelancer sits between them and is the right answer surprisingly often.

A contract that protects the number

Four clauses, all short: versions, revisions per version, asset ownership, and credit rollover. Add a fifth if the supplier uses a model: which model version, because output style and pricing both shift between versions.

Getting to a number today

If you want to see what a 15-second structure looks like before you brief anyone, the video ad generator is in development here — it assembles a timed script and shot list from a product, an audience and an offer, with no account and nothing stored. See what is live in the tools section.

For a fixed-price build of the pipeline itself — brief in, versioned cuts out, your brand rules applied — book a 20-minute call. We quote in writing before work starts.