What is Runway Dev?
Runway's APIs for video, image, audio and avatars, with workflows.
Who is Runway Dev best for?
Runway Dev is best for developers who want to add AI video, images or live avatars to their own apps through one API.
Apps that generate video
One API reaches Runway's own Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0 alongside Veo, Seedance, Hailuo and Grok Imagine models.
Product ads at scale
Recipes return a finished product ad, product swap, UGC-style clip or localized ad image from a single call.
Live avatar agents
Characters adds real-time talking avatars with custom voices, a knowledge base and tool calling, and works with LiveKit and ElevenLabs agents.
Teams balancing cost and quality
The model router picks a model for each request based on your cost, quality or speed priority and a cost ceiling per generation.
How much does Runway Dev cost?
Runway Dev is pay as you go: credits cost $0.01 each with a $10 minimum first purchase, and each model uses a set number of credits, such as 12 credits a second for Gen-4.5 video.
- Bought per project in the developer portal
- $10 minimum first purchase, or 1,000 credits
- Optional auto top-up of at least 1,000 credits
- $0.08 per 1080p image
- Gen-4 Image Turbo costs 2 credits per image
- Muse Image costs 1 credit per image
- Text or image to video, clips up to 10 seconds
- Gen-4 Turbo costs 5 credits a second
- Veo 3.1 with audio costs 40 credits a second
- Edits clips up to 30 seconds
- 56-credit minimum per generation
- ProRes output adds 5 credits a second, HDR 20 or more
Other labs' models on Runway Dev have their own credit rates, for example 20 credits for a Nano Banana Pro image at 1K or 2K and 150 credits a second for Seedance 2.0 in 4K. Seed Audio costs 0.25 credits a second and ElevenLabs v3 speech 1 credit per 50 characters; Characters avatars cost 2 credits up front, then 2 credits per 6 seconds. Model Routers bill the rate of whichever model they pick. Each project starts with a $100 monthly spending cap that rises automatically as you buy more credits, up to $100,000 a month; higher limits come through Runway's enterprise team. Sales tax may apply. Full pricing on docs.dev.runwayml.com. We checked these prices on .
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How do I connect Runway to my AI agent?
Runway MCP is Runway's official MCP server. Add it to your agent once, then ask it to generate video and images with your Runway developer account.
Connects your agent to your Runway developer account through OAuth, so it can run Runway's video and image models without an API key in your config.
$ claude mcp add --transport http runway https://dev.runwayml.com/mcp
Claude Code connects to Runway over the web.
Make an API key in your Runway account and add it where the guide says.
Then ask your agent
- Runs
- On the web
- Sign-in
- API key
- Checked
- Answered 13 Nov
Questions about Runway Dev
What is Runway Dev?
Runway's APIs for video, image, audio and avatars, with workflows.
Who is Runway Dev for?
Runway Dev is best for developers who want to add AI video, images or live avatars to their own apps through one API.
Is Runway Dev free?
No. Runway Dev is a paid tool, from $0.01 per credit.
How much video does $10 of Runway Dev credits make?
$10 buys 1,000 Runway Dev credits. At Gen-4.5's 12 credits a second, that covers about 83 seconds of video, or sixteen 5-second clips. Gen-4 Turbo, at 5 credits a second, stretches the same credits to 200 seconds.
Does Runway have an MCP server?
Yes. Runway MCP is Runway's official MCP server, so agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and GitHub Copilot can generate video and images with your Runway developer account. Runway runs it on the web and it signs in with an API key from your Runway account.
Where can I try Runway Dev?
On its official website, dev.runwayml.com.
What are Runway Dev's rate limits?
Runway Dev limits each project by usage tier. Tier 1 allows one or two generations at a time per model and $100 of spending a month; buying $50 of credits moves you to Tier 2, and Tier 5, reached after $5,000, allows 20 at a time and $100,000 a month.
Runway Characters
Gemini Avatars
ElevenLabs Avatars
Vidyard AI Avatars
DeeVid AI
Pippit