AI video plans should price credits in finished seconds, not 'up to'

Our position: an AI video or audio plan should say, on the plan card, how many finished seconds its credits buy at the quality most people will actually choose, and what happens to credits that go unused or fail. "Up to" clip counts and bare credit totals are not enough for a buyer to compare plans. Adobe's Firefly lineup is a useful, well-documented example, and it is worth saying up front that the point is the practice, not one company.

What a credit headline can hide

A recent third-party pricing review, which says it read Adobe's own pages on 7 October, lists Firefly Standard at $9.99 a month with 2,000 monthly credits. Per the review, the plan card says those credits "generate up to 20 five-second videos". The same review works out that this is the 540p rate of 20 credits per second. At Adobe's listed 1080p rate of 100 credits per second, 2,000 credits make four five-second clips instead of 20. The reviewer is careful to say neither number is wrong. We agree. The problem is that a buyer reading only the card sees the best case.

The spread gets wider across models. The same review's table of Adobe's published rates shows partner video models at very different costs per second of output. At 1080p, Kling 3.0 is listed at 25 credits per second without audio and 35 with audio, while Dreamina Seedance 2.0 is listed at 180. Our arithmetic from those figures: 2,000 credits is roughly 80 seconds of Kling without audio, about 57 seconds with audio, and about 11 seconds of Seedance at 1080p. One plan, one price, a seven-fold difference in output. The review also notes some features are listed as "Varies" or "Credits vary", because the cost is known only after a run, and that several partner-model rates are marked limited-time.

None of this is hidden in the strict sense. The review points to Adobe's help pages for the rates. But they sit on separate pages from the plan prices, and the buyer has to do the multiplication.

Unused and failed credits are part of the price

The same review reports that, per Adobe's FAQ, balances reset to the plan allowance on the billing date, so unused credits from a quiet month are gone. It also says unlimited standard generation on paid plans has a fair-use backstop, and that standard image features cost zero credits while premium work such as video, audio and partner models consumes them. These are reasonable commercial terms. They are also facts that change what a month of credits is worth, and they belong beside the price.

Complaints elsewhere in the category follow the same pattern. An article by the founder of a company in this market, which readers should weigh accordingly, says complaints centre on billing more than on output quality: monthly credit expiry, refused refunds, cancellation friction and failed generations that still consume credits. We cannot verify those complaints independently, and we do not name any vendor as responsible for them. But they describe the questions buyers would ask if the plan card answered them first.

The strongest counter-argument

The fair objection is that credits exist because video generation is not a uniform product. A 1080p clip from a premium model costs a provider far more to produce than a short low-resolution one, so a flat "20 videos" or "unlimited" promise would either overcharge casual users or collapse under heavy ones. Credits let a buyer pick the quality they want and pay for it. On this view, the rates are published, the buyer is an adult, and a long conversion table on a pricing card would only add clutter.

There is also evidence that the market is not uniformly bad. A video-tool vendor's blog, again an interested party, quotes Runway's help centre as saying credits "are automatically returned to your account shortly after a generation error", and says Higgsfield makes a similar statement. If that holds, failed-render refunds are already normal at some vendors, and competition may do the rest. And for many buyers the cheaper answer is no credits at all: the review says Adobe's Firefly Free tier carries a limited daily allowance and that standard image generation costs no credits on paid plans.

Why we still think the card should change

We accept the objection about uneven costs, and we do not argue for abolishing credits. We argue for one line of translation. If credits are the unit, the plan card should show the cost of a representative output in finished seconds, at the resolution most buyers will pick, next to the "up to" best case. It should also state three terms in plain words: whether credits roll over, whether failed generations are refunded, and which features are priced as "varies". That is a few short lines, not a table.

The counter-argument also cuts our way. If published rates make the system fair, then putting the conversion beside the price costs a vendor nothing and lets the fairness show. If refunds are already automatic, saying so is a selling point. The vendors who already do both lose nothing, and buyers who compare plans in a hurry gain a like-for-like number.

Until that happens, buyers have to do the work themselves. Before paying, find the vendor's rate for the model and resolution you will use, divide your monthly credits by it, and check the expiry and failed-generation terms. Do that for each plan you compare. For occasional use, a free tier or a plan that charges nothing for standard features may be enough.

Caveats: the Adobe figures above come from a third-party review's reading of Adobe's pages on 7 October, which we did not independently re-open, and from a US-dollar price list. Adobe prices by region, and plans and credit rates change. Check the vendor's current pages before you decide.