Looking for a Luma Alternative? Subscription Credits vs Coins, per Five-Second Clip

People searching for a Luma alternative are usually not unhappy with the clips. They are looking at a renewal date, or at a sentence in the terms that rules out what they wanted to make. This is a budget worksheet for that moment. It asks three questions, answers each from both price lists, and does not pretend the answers all go one way.

Everything about Luma below was read on their pricing page and their terms of service on 1 October 2026. They price in US dollars and we sell in euros, and we have not converted either, because an exchange rate would add a number that moves daily. If their page says something else by the time you read this, their page is right.

How Luma charges, as of 1 October

Monthly subscriptions measured in credits, three of them: Plus at $30.00 a month for 10,000 credits, Pro at $90.00 for 40,000, and Ultra at $300.00 for 150,000, with a yearly discount of up to a fifth. The page we read lists no free plan. Credits buy generations on their own video model and on several third-party models offered under the same account, and the page prices each: their current model costs 100 credits for a 5-second 720p clip and 400 for the same clip at 1080p, and the previous generation of it 100 and 400 respectively. HDR output, 4K on some of the third-party models, and tools for extending, reframing, re-rendering an existing video and syncing lips sit in the same menu.

The terms add three lines that matter more than the table. Pornographic or sexually explicit content is prohibited. Commercial use of what you generate is granted while a paid subscription is active. Watermarks and content credentials are not to be removed. Plans renew automatically until cancelled.

How we charge

No plan. You buy coins in packages, and a clip in the video studio costs a fixed number of them set by the model, the resolution and the length, with a small surcharge of 10 coins if you ask for sound. The full list lives on the product page, which is built from the code that charges, and every figure for our side below comes from that same code rather than from anyone's typing. Bigger packages carry more bonus coins, so the price per coin falls as the package grows; coins do not expire; a failed generation refunds its coins without a ticket (what a failed generation costs you). Clips run up to 30 seconds, and the non-turbo model reaches 4K (4K and 30 seconds).

Question one: what does one clip cost

The unit both lists can be read in is a 5-second clip without sound. Our side is priced on the turbo model, our cheapest route to each resolution.

• Luma, 720p, their current model: $0.30 on Plus credits, down to $0.20 on Ultra.
• Fellowi, 720p: €3.77 at the Starter package rate, €1.94 at Creator, €1.55 at Scale.
• Luma, 1080p, their current model: $1.20 on Plus, down to $0.80 on Ultra; the previous generation at 1080p is $1.20 on Plus.
• Fellowi, 1080p: €2.31 at Creator, €1.85 at Scale.

Read plainly: on a plan you spend, Luma is cheaper per clip by a wide margin at 720p and a clear one at 1080p. We are not going to argue with their arithmetic, and we would rather you saw it here than on their page after reading ours.

Question two: does your monthly number hold

A plan is a bet that you will use it. Plus covers about 100 five-second 720p clips a month on their current model, or about 25 at 1080p, and the credits reset when the month does. If you make video every week, that bet pays and no coin package of ours matches the rate.

If video comes in bursts, the sum changes. Take 12 clips at 720p for one project, then nothing for a while. On Plus those clips use 1,200 credits and the other 8,800 expire with the month, so the real price was $2.50 per clip, and the plan bills again unless you remember to cancel. The same 12 clips with coins come to about €23.24 at the Creator rate, and whatever is left in the package waits for the next project. The general version of this sum is in how much AI video costs.

Question three: what are the clips allowed to show

This is the question price lists do not answer, and it is the one that most often sends someone looking for an alternative. Luma's terms prohibit pornographic and sexually explicit content. Ours allow it for verified adults, with hard refusals for anything involving minors or non-consent, and the same models and prices apply. If that is what you came for, the per-clip arithmetic above is beside the point; if it is not, it is the whole point, and Luma wins it.

What Luma does better

• Price per clip on a used plan, as the list above shows.
• HDR. Their current model offers it; ours does not.
• Tools around the clip. Extend, reframe, re-render an existing video, lip sync. We generate a clip from text or from a start and end frame, with an optional soundtrack (video with sound), and nothing that edits a video you already have.
• A menu of models from several makers under one login, picked per job. Ours is a short list chosen by us.
• Team features on the higher plans. We sell to one account at a time.
• A pricing page that prices every model. We do the same on ours and still think it is the right way to show a credit price.

What we do differently

• No plan, no reset, no renewal. Coins stay until spent.
• Failures refunded automatically. The pages we read on their site do not say what happens to credits spent on a generation that fails.
• Commercial use with every purchase, including the smallest package, and it does not lapse when you stop buying (the commercial-use clause). Theirs is tied to an active subscription.
• No watermark. The file you download is the file.
• Adult content for verified adults, as above.

So which, this month

If you will make video every week and your clips are safe for work, take a Luma plan and spend it; the arithmetic is theirs. If video arrives in bursts, the credits you would not use are the whole price difference, and coins are the cheaper habit. If what you want to make is adult, their terms close the door and ours does not. Open the video studio, price one clip, and decide with the number in front of you.