How do you compare AI image and video API costs before building a product?
Updated: 2026-07-05
Image and video API cost depends on more than listed price. You also need retry rate, generation specs, waiting time, storage, and unusable results.
Short answer
Build a small benchmark from your real product tasks. Test each model 20-50 times, then compare success rate, average usable cost, waiting time, and manual rework.
Steps
- List the five most common generation tasks in your product.
- Create fixed prompts and quality criteria.
- Test several models with the same inputs.
- Count failed and unusable outputs as cost.
- Choose a default model and backup model.
Recommended models
- GPT Image 2 for high-quality images.
- Nano Banana for fast image iteration.
- Seedream for style variation.
- Seedance for video generation.
Cost and reliability notes
- Video cost is more sensitive than image cost.
- Use high resolution only after prompt validation.
- Measure usable output cost, not just request price.
How to do it with lizh.ai
Create an API key in lizh.ai and use it as a Bearer token in clients that support an OpenAI-compatible API.
Use Base URL: https://lizh.ai/v1