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Krea vs Runway

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Cheaper paid plan
Runway — $12/mo vs $21/mo for Krea
Free plan
Both have one
Public API
Both have one
Higher Trust score
Runway — 98 vs 91 for Krea
Best fit
Krea: Designers and concept artists who iterate visually on a canvas rather than through prompt rewrites · Runway: Filmmakers and studios prototyping shots and VFX before committing budget

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

KreaCreative suite with a real-time canvas, image and video generation, upscaling and 3D across its own and third-party modelsRunwayVideo, image and audio generation suite built around the Gen-4.5 model, with mobile apps and a developer API

Side by side

FactKreaRunway
CategoryText-to-Image GeneratorsText-to-Video Generators
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at$21/mo$12/mo
Public APIYesYes
Trust score91 / 10098 / 100
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, iOS, Android, API
CompanyKrea.ai, Inc.Runway AI, Inc.
Launched—2018
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Krea

Krea is the aggregator to pick when you want one subscription that covers image, video, upscaling and 3D instead of four, and the real-time canvas is still the fastest way to steer a composition by hand. The trade-off is that you are renting other people's models at a markup measured in compute units, so heavy video users should check the per-generation unit costs before trusting the headline price.

Pros

  • Real-time canvas renders in under 50 ms, which makes composition a direct-manipulation task
  • Own Krea 2 model plus a long list of third-party image and video models in one place
  • Free tier refills daily rather than once, so it stays usable for light work
  • Public API with an SDK and MCP server, and LoRA training from as few as 50 images

Cons

  • Compute units are an abstraction over very different model costs, so the monthly pool is hard to budget
  • Pro and Max units expire at month end and extra packs expire after 90 days
  • Visible prices and the page's structured data disagreed on the Max tier today
  • Video generation is unavailable on the free plan (video concurrency 0)

Runway

One of the few AI video vendors with a full pipeline - generation, editing, upscaling, API - rather than a single model demo, and its film-industry adoption is real. The catch is credit economics: high-resolution generations drain a month's allowance quickly, so the advertised entry price rarely reflects working costs.

Pros

  • Gen-4.5 delivers strong motion consistency and prompt adherence
  • Suite, mobile apps and API cover creation through delivery
  • Max tier exports ProRes and 16-bit HDR for professional finishing
  • Long operating history (since 2018) compared with newer video startups

Cons

  • Credit-metered pricing makes real monthly cost hard to predict
  • Premium models and formats sit behind the more expensive tiers
  • The free plan is effectively a one-time demo

Which one fits

Choose Krea if you need

  • Designers and concept artists who iterate visually on a canvas rather than through prompt rewrites
  • Small studios that want current image and video models under one bill without managing API keys
  • Anyone upscaling and cleaning up stills or short clips for print or social

Choose Runway if you need

  • Filmmakers and studios prototyping shots and VFX before committing budget
  • Marketing and social teams producing short generated clips at volume
  • Developers who want a video-generation API from an established vendor

Krea vs Runway: the questions people ask

Is Krea cheaper than Runway?

On published entry prices, Runway starts lower — $12/mo against $21/mo for Krea. Entry price is the lowest paid plan as we last verified it; what each plan includes differs.

Does Krea or Runway have a free tier?

Both: Krea has a free tier, and Runway has a free tier.

Which has a public API, Krea or Runway?

Both ship a public API, so either can be built on; the fact table above shows the platforms each one runs on.

More comparisons

All Krea alternatives →All Runway alternatives →Browse all Text-to-Image Generators →